Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you. Exodus 20:12

Today would have been my father’s 106^th birthday. There is a long beautiful story of faith associated with my relationship with my father; answers to prayers and the affirming of eternal life. I will share that story in this post.

I know my father was with me today. Unplanned and not typical of our habits, my 89 year old mother took my arm as we made our way to communion. We received the body of Christ side by side. As if my father orchestrated the whole thing.

During Communion I was overwhelmed with the gift of tears. I was filled with Light and sweet gratitude for all of God’s blessings. It was an unsolicited consolation from heaven. I know it was an answer to my father’s heavenly prayers to Jesus that He might come and touch me with His presence in a special way today. No words – even as I try to to share a simple recount of my experience I feel overwhelmed… Praise be the Name of Jesus… our God is such a LOVER. Oh, that all would know Him…

The day was topped off with me spending the evening cooking a birthday celebratory meal with my son.

Here’s a video of me during the premiere of the opera my father and I wrote telling His story. If you prefer, below the video is a written version of the story:

I ask God to bless all of our fathers, and father figures in our lives. Thank you for letting me share something personal.

Written Version of the Video Story

After my father survived a number of heart issues, I became acutely aware of wanting to prepare to say good-bye. Here is a note I never gave to my father that I wrote for Father’s Day 2000:

      On this Father’s Day I am reflecting on an inevitable event. I am not trying to be morbid. It’s just part of understanding your impact upon me as a father and as a friend involves imagining your absence. Death is certain. Everything around us is in constant chaos. There is a light at the end of the tunnel and that is death. Neither I nor anyone else can offer any insights into the nature of death. Is there anything after life as we know it here and now. Who knows? Maybe it’s not even a useful question. We are conscious of so very little. We walk around in a blind haze half the time. There is much truth in the cliché, “the living dead.” Come to think of it there isn’t much that is very permanent about us any way. Every moment is a new opportunity. Every breath challenges us to make new decisions. These series of mini decisions define us. Yes, there is a pattern, a collection of decisions that form themselves into webs of memories. We rally around these webs to gain a glimpse of ourselves. However, I believe they are only a model of who we have been and not who we are. Who we are is ever changing, ever new? Yet our stories of the past ground us.

   We spend so much time denying our deaths. Why aren’t we happy once we have the certainty, we long for in all the other areas of life? Maybe it’s because the creative process of making something of our self, and our exigencies is what is truly life affirming. Stability and structure are only what we think we need and want. Think about how fulfilled we feel when we complete a project. Take a blank piece of manuscript. The act is in the doing. While we create, we are completely in tune with our process. Recognition of the completed manuscript feels more like an afterthought. We are made whole in the doing not in the recognizing or labeling. 

   I am coming to terms with what it will mean to lose you. I will always feel a certain frustration living with the knowledge that I do not know you - that there is so much more for me to know. Our lives over lapped and we have touched each other deeply but it never seems like enough, and the mystery of it all leaves me begging for more. But I realize I owe it to you and owe it to myself to think about your eventual departure. It must be on your mind in one way or another. The illusion of my relative youth and a stream of endless possibilities inhibit me from knowing what you might be feeling or thinking. I project my fears of losing you through my contribution in the family’s militant scrutiny of your health and diet. I am not advocating carelessness, but you deserve some peace.

   There are no profound proclamations to be made. Whenever your time comes, go in peace and go in love. To say that you will be missed is an understatement. Life goes on but all of us will be changed. A piece of you lives inside of me. You will help me unravel my Pandora box. Every day brings new parts of me to the surface. Pure surprises. I cannot see in. I bounce my views and perceptions of you and all the other people in my life to shed light on aspects of myself I know as only shadows. I am rambling in abstractions. Let me try to give you a concrete example. How will I ever forget the night we performed Gabriel’s aria for the first time with orchestra. The connection and emotion I felt in standing next to you and sharing a piece of music we created together with an audience. It is a source of strength for me. The passion I have observed in you stirs in me. The drive to communicate I witness in your conducting and endless religious discussions also consumes me.

   I am sorry I will never know you completely but that is how and why I will never stop getting to know you. That is how you always be alive and with me. So I am trying to let you go. I am trying to let you know that we love you more than we could ever express. I am trying to tell you to embrace the certainty of death. And when the time comes, and God willing it will not be any time soon, greet her with music, peace, and love. She comes to bring Ultimate Healing.

Worries about my father and my desire to see him connect to God grew to a crescendo in my heart. Cindy and I were driving to Yosemite. I was sitting in the passenger on a bright, cloudless day. I had my eyes closed leaning against the window of the car praying fervently to God to show me that my father would be okay. I wanted to be assured that He would receive my Daddy into his arms when the time came to take him. I was desperate to understand what role He wanted me to play in preparing my father. My earnest prayers had brought me to tears. I opened my eyes to behold the sky and witness a rainbow that came out of nowhere. I began to bawl with gratitude for God’s gracious love.

Whether or not the next two signs were directly from God or just my sense making mind looking for meaning does not matter. The results are what matter. Cindy was driving again. We were on Tioga Pass. It had just been opened a day or two before. A juvenile bear ran out of the woods. We clipped him; more like tripped him than hit him. He fell on his back with his little feet kicking in the air. We were on an incline so he rolled back on his feet and ran into the woods. I interpreted this event to be a metaphor of our life. We are hit by death and then run unscathed into God’s mysterious forest kingdom.

By day three of our vacation I was ready to experience a third sign. I was not disappointed. We were driving home after an amazing hike in Hetch Hetchy. Once again Cindy was in the driver seat. Walking on the side of the road I saw a coyote. He was heading straight towards us. We slowed down to around 15 miles an hour. Coyote pranced right by our car. As he passed me no more than ten feet away, he turned and locked eyes with me. Have you ever looked into the eyes of a coyote? For a moment I felt tossed into the immensity of eternity.

I came back from our Yosemite trip and knew exactly what I was supposed to do. I dusted off the opera libretto I had begun in high school and went straight to work. Daddy refused to write anything that he did not think would be played or published. In fact he had pretty much stopped composing altogether. The idea of him writing an opera was absurd. Through the grace of the Holy Spirit I had discerned that part of Daddy’s healing journey to God would entail using his God given gift to create music.

I finished the libretto for Tryillias in three months. I presented it to my father with bated breath. To everyone’s great surprise Daddy began work on it right away. He finished the opera in less than five months of intense effort.  Here is a synopsis of the opera the themes of which parallel my conversation of faith with my father. I identify deeply with the character of Artaban:

“An archetypal struggle between terror and faith, power and love. The story chronicles a village’s rite of passage from tyranny to a new order…”

READ THE STORY OF THE OPERA HERE

Daddy never looked back. Together we began an amazing seven year journey of co-creating. He began using his gift as an end in itself. God was working through every note he put on a page of manuscript. He wrote another opera, many art songs, and a mass for my sister’s wedding. Yet, his greatest composition was still waiting in the wings.

After writing without the need for compensation or recognition, God in His goodness gave my father a special gift. Through an unlikely series of events I was in the position to pitch a musical commission to the marketing director of the Tehama/Monterra development. To my great surprise she gave us a budget to put together a small orchestra to professionally record the song my father and I wrote. This was August 2006 – four months before God was to receive Daddy’s soul. I cannot describe to you the joy I experienced watching Daddy at 90 years old conduct. The energy he marshaled was unbelievable. Throughout the rehearsal he sat on a stool. Then for the final two takes he stood up. The Holy Spirit came rushing to the scene jetting out of Daddy’s baton. I cherish the video and picture I have of Daddy’s signature wink and okay sign he gave to the orchestra at the end of the second take. My father had the thrilling experience of seeing his music shared and distributed on CD to over 5000 people.

Then God turned to inking His quiet coda. Daddy wanted to set to music the Nicene Creed. Remember, this is the guy who wanted nothing to do with the Church. Each time he set the creed to music he was dissatisfied. I heard all six settings of the creed, each one better than the last.  After Daddy passed away I discovered a seventh setting of the creed sitting on the piano that none of us had ever heard. This last setting of the creed was just music between my Daddy’s soul and God’s great love. My prayers had been answered.

Here are some of Daddy’s final words…

There are many other beautiful stories surrounding daddy’s passing. There is one last one that I feel compelled to share in this piece. It was a little over two weeks after my father had passed away; the week between Christmas and New Year. Cindy had planned a trip to one of our favorite places – Point Reyes/Tomales Bay. We were staying in a wonderful bed and breakfast with a special room nestled in the trees called the Eagle’s nest. On the evening of our first night I had a powerful dream.

The Eagle’s nest has a hot tub right outside of the room. During the night I woke up inside of my dream. I walked outside to the hot tub. I gazed down and saw my father’s lifeless body in the bottom of the tub. I stepped into the water. I gently lifted Daddy’s body and sat him on the side of the tub. He came to life and smiled at me. I was filled with an immediate sense of God love, experiencing intense sensations of wonder and awe. It was a gift of reassurance and thanks. Without an iota of doubt I knew now that I had played a role as Christ’s hands and His feet walking with Daddy on his journey to Ultimate Healing.