The Death of Everything That Comes Between Us
"I remember when I saw my dad for the first time. I saw him not as my father, not as 'mine' in any way, but simply as a character in a movie, a part being played by Being itself.
I saw him in clarity, I saw what was actually there. I saw through the story, the story of father and son, the story that he wasn't who I wanted him to be, the story of shoulds and shouldn'ts and might haves.
When all that heaviness dropped away, when the past became as irrelevant as the future, what was left was shockingly innocent: an old man, greying hair, wrinkles all over his face, liver spots on his hands.
At once all attempts to change him ceased, and there was only gratitude for what was there.
It was all so innocent. He had been so innocent. I had been so innocent. He wasn't my father at all, and I wasn't his son. Those were just roles that we had mistaken for reality. The actor in the play had forgotten that he was an actor. He had forgotten that he had just been playing the role of father or son. He had become identified with the role, and reality had become totally constricted.
But now, the fog had cleared, the doors of perception had been cleansed, and all there was, was the simplicity of what was happening. Old man, greying hair, sitting on a chair, eating breakfast.
No sense that he was mine. No sense of possession. No sense of control or lack of it. Just an innocent character, being himself perfectly. Jesus said that he and the father were one, and now I knew what he'd meant.
In a sense, it was a death. Death of the father story, and along with it, death of the son story. Death of father and son. Death of everything that had come between us. Death of the roles. Death of the pretense. Death of the façade, the masks, the games. And in that death, there was only the throb of life. Nothing real can ever die.
And not just father, but mother, sister, brother, friend, lover: all are just temporary roles. And those roles can be very useful when it comes to functioning in this world, but they can so easily come between us. They can so easily mask the intimacy that is always there."
~Jeff Foster, An Extraordinary Absence
🌺Notice how the roles we play, as children and parents, can come between us. When we identify so strongly with our role, we mistake it for reality and forget what's actually happening.
"Old man, greying hair, sitting on a chair, eating breakfast." This is what's happening. This is reality. Everything else is part of a mind-made story.
When you find yourself getting lost in your role as a son or daughter and getting caught up in your sressful thoughts, remember to come back to reality. Return to the truth of life, to what's actually happening in this moment. And rest in presence.
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