The Puzzled Father
Their father was
puzzled by me. He was talking with his friend Jack and kept looking over to
where his boy and girl were actively engaged in a conversation with me under
the shade of our maple tree beside the bird bath with the stone eagle. The boy
was ten and his sister twelve, and we were so involved that their father, whose
family was staying for the weekend with his friend Jack and his family at Jack’s
wife’s family cottage, had to walk over to meet me when his children were
called in for the second time by their mother for dinner.
“I had to come
over and talk to you. Anyone who can hold my kids’ attention as long you can must
have something special,” said the puzzled father. “That’s a man I have to meet,
I said to myself,” he added, and I couldn’t help but break into a mirthful
chuckle.
“It happens all
the time,” I said, which didn’t seem to surprise him.
“I know. Jack told
me his kids can’t get enough of you.” Jack was our cottage neighbor whose three
children, Christian, Luca, and Alexander were the joy of our life when they
came up every summer. Penny and I watched those boys grow up, until one of
Jack’s wife’s siblings (her brother) who had inherited one third of the family cottage
insisted on selling it; and now our new neighbor is a Ukrainian lady from
Toronto who comes to the cottage infrequently. She bought it with her mother’s
help for retirement. She’s single and has a twenty-six-year-old son who is
trying to make a living as a musician who comes to the cottage and hibernates
for three or four days at a time and then leaves. We never see much of him.
Penny and I miss
Jack’s children and we all cried when they left. I have pictures of us on my
Facebook page, but what did I have that these children couldn’t get enough of?
This mystery has puzzled a lot of people, and continues to do so; but it’s not
a mystery to those that have been initiated into the secret way of Christ’s
teaching.
When the disciples
came to Jesus and asked him why he spoke to the public in parables, Jesus
replied to them in his cryptic manner: “Because
it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to
them it is not given. For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall
have more abundance; but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken even that
he hath” (Math. 13: 11-12). Which begs the question: what did his disciples
have that they would be given more of with Christ’s teaching? “But whoever drinks of the water that I
will give him will never thirst again,” said Jesus. “The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water
welling up to eternal life” (John 4: 14).
Was it the water
of eternal life? Is that what I had that those children couldn’t get enough of?
But water of eternal life is so deeply esoteric that it’s metaphysically
abstract and impossible to grasp. I prefer the word “virtue,” that special
energy that one realizes by practicing the noble virtues of life, especially the
sacred virtue of Goodness.
But this isn’t
something one should talk about, because it invites the wrong kind of energy
from the wrong kind of people. Fortunately, the puzzled father of those two
children who were drawn to me like bees to honey wasn’t one of those people.
Still, I couldn’t
tell him my secret. That would have been foolish, and not “the way of the sly
man.” Instead I gave him one of my books to read, Stupidity Is Not a Gift of God, and maybe, just maybe he would
figure it out on his own, as everyone must who wish to enter the gates of the
sacred kingdom of heavenly bliss; but what did the children and I talk about
that puzzled their father so much? Why were they so engaged with me?
As I often do, I
asked the children what they wanted to be. I do this just to see if they have been
called by life, and both of the puzzled father’s children knew what they wanted
to be when they grew up; and so, I pursued my line of inquiry. And they talked
and talked, telling me how much they loved what they wanted to become, and I
encouraged them to talk about themselves and by telling them that the happiest
people in the world were people who loved
what they did in life; and I went into the house and got the girl a jar of peach
jam and the boy a jar of plum jam that Penny and I had just made the week
before, just to give them what Gurdjieff called a “reminding factor” every time
they ate peach and plum jam.
But I never told
their father that. I said to their puzzled father. “I just listened to them,
that’s all. I asked them what they wanted to be, and they told me.”
But that wasn’t
good enough for him. He knew something else was going on, and he pressed me. He
said I had something they wanted, and he compared that to his fascination with Ayn
Rand’s philosophy that he got pulled into in his middle twenties.
“Ayn Rand?” I
said. “That’s a dangerous path. Her philosophy will take you to a dead end. It’s
not a good path to become the person you’re meant to be. It’s all about
rational self-interest, not love for your family and fellow man—”
“I know!” he burst out, surprising me. “That’s why
I stopped reading her when my daughter was born. She changed my whole life. I
couldn’t live Rand’s philosophy any longer. It wasn’t all about me. I had to
live for my wife and family. That’s what my daughter’s birth did for me. And my
son’s birth confirmed it. I love my wife and kids. They’re my life now. I agree
with you completely. So, you know Ayn Rand?”
“Yes, I’ve read Rand.
But what else can you expect from an self-centred atheist?”
“Who do you read
now?” the puzzled father asked, more intrigued than ever.
“You want to know
what makes me tick, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do. I’ve
never met anyone like you before.”
“I’ll tell you
what,” I said, and stood up. “I’ll give you one of my books to read. It’ll give
you everything you need to know about me,” and I went into the house and got a
copy of my third volume of spiritual musings, Stupidity Is Not a Gift of God, and gave it to him. “But fair
warning. This is my philosophy of life, and not an easy book to read.”
He looked at the
cover, intrigued by a cartoon figure being frazzled by an electric current, a metaphor
for what the holy current of life can do to the uninitiated. “Thanks,” he said.
“So, if I read this it’ll tell me what makes you tick?”
“It’ll tell you
more than that. It’ll tell you what makes you
tick,” I said, and broke into a hearty laugh. That was another reason why he
kept looking over when his children and I were talking, he couldn’t get over all
the laughter; but, “except ye be converted,
and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” said
Jesus, and I smiled at the puzzled
father who had caught a glimpse of the sacred mystery as his children and I
talked under the shade of the maple tree beside the bird bath with the stone
eagle.
——
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