My father always promised us
That we would live in France
We'd go boating on the Seine
And I would learn to dance
We lived in Ohio then
He worked in the mines
On his dreams like boats
We knew we would sail in time
All my sisters soon were gone
To Denver and Cheyenne
Marrying their grownup dreams
The lilacs and the man
I stayed behind the youngest still
Only danced alone
The colors of my father's dreams
Faded without a sound
And I live in Paris now
My children dance and dream
Hearing the ways of a miner's life
In words they've never seen
I sail my memories of home
Like boats across the Seine
And watch the Paris sun
As it sets in my father's eyes again
My father always promised us
That we would live in France
We'd go boating on the Seine
And I would learn to dance
I sail my memories of home
Like boats across the Seine
And watch the Paris sun
As it sets in my father's eyes again
And how differently it all turns out.
I didn't have a close relationship with my own biological father. He was a bigamist and as absent as parents get. The little that he was around, he was critical of everything I did - although I remember him being very funny. He died when I was 21. I didn't go to the funeral. For a long time I projected my feelings about my own father, onto the model of God as Father - it's just never been a model that set well with me. I quickly jumped on the bandwagon to move to more gender inclusive language when describing God - I just didn't have any sense of what it was like to be loved by a father. Deep emotions were always triggered by "father issue" movies - like "Field of Dreams."
I think in more recent years - as I have come to understand a more integral worldview, much of this has lightened up for me - perhaps my father didn't leave me a legacy of memories, or some special skill set that he passed on. But he did leave me with something and it has taken a while to sort it out -
What he left me with was the understanding that I am responsible for creating the dreams that have. Perhaps, like God bequeaths talents and gifts on people - my father simply gave me an interesting and eclectic gene pool and set me free to use it, to explore it - to maximize or minimize as conditions, circumstances (interior and exterior) would allow.
And, the more I come to understand the OTHER Father, the more I begin to see that this is His operational plan too. Give us the basics, the tools - and set us free to see what kind of creative things we can dream up. Don't micromanage the details. I don't know what my biological father's dreams were for me. I knew better who he didn't want me to be, but the positive stuff we just didn't have the time to deal with.
Over the past ten years or so, coming to be 54, dealing with cancer and other life changing and challenging issues, I have more of a sense of God's presence, simply reminding me that I am already gifted with the resiliency, intellect and resourcefulness to make it through whatever life throws my way. How I choose to use those gifts; expand or develop them, is a choice I am able to make daily. For me, God's extravagant promises are really the simple stuff of life - and it is with such delight, that I can "watch the Paris sun as it sets in my Father's eyes again."
I think in more recent years - as I have come to understand a more integral worldview, much of this has lightened up for me - perhaps my father didn't leave me a legacy of memories, or some special skill set that he passed on. But he did leave me with something and it has taken a while to sort it out -
What he left me with was the understanding that I am responsible for creating the dreams that have. Perhaps, like God bequeaths talents and gifts on people - my father simply gave me an interesting and eclectic gene pool and set me free to use it, to explore it - to maximize or minimize as conditions, circumstances (interior and exterior) would allow.
And, the more I come to understand the OTHER Father, the more I begin to see that this is His operational plan too. Give us the basics, the tools - and set us free to see what kind of creative things we can dream up. Don't micromanage the details. I don't know what my biological father's dreams were for me. I knew better who he didn't want me to be, but the positive stuff we just didn't have the time to deal with.
Over the past ten years or so, coming to be 54, dealing with cancer and other life changing and challenging issues, I have more of a sense of God's presence, simply reminding me that I am already gifted with the resiliency, intellect and resourcefulness to make it through whatever life throws my way. How I choose to use those gifts; expand or develop them, is a choice I am able to make daily. For me, God's extravagant promises are really the simple stuff of life - and it is with such delight, that I can "watch the Paris sun as it sets in my Father's eyes again."
My father always promised us
That we would live in France
We'd go boating on the Seine
And I would learn to dance
