Some of you may have heard me say, “I never knew my father.” It is, actually, more accurate to say I barely knew him, and then to confess from the margins of my own existence, not a day goes by when I do not in some way feel that I lack the imagination necessary to move toward this or to come within reach of that. I admit I have understood how consuming it can be to expend a Santa Fe afternoon storm amount of wasted energy hoping to discover the slightest idea of his whereabouts or futilely trying to make some sense of his “discriminatory disinvolvement” in our lives.
Many years ago on a trip to New Mexico with my friend, Larry Stevens, we learned that my father’s grave was in the National Cemetery located just off the thorough fare in Santa Fe; a place I had passed by and admired on any number of occasions. Later, I found out that he was there because his wife, wanting to honor her love for that no-good rascal, had fulfilled his long desire to reside in Santa Fe bringing him to a new home only after he died. As even now he rests in peace, the irony is that his dream had been fulfilled beyond his wildest expectations. He knew no such serenity.
As I looked to the sky over Santa Fe just a few days ago, it was as crisp as my starched blue shirt, and served willingly, almost proudly, as a grand backdrop for the white robust clouds that stretched higher and reached wider than you can imagine. In the brilliance of the morning light, something new came to me. I realized maybe for the very first time, I did know something quite wonderful about this man that before I might have only been able to make up. If we’re measured by the size of our dreams, then I admire the hope he carried with him to someday live and move and have his being on the terra firma at the base of those mountains. He mustn’t have been all bad after all. What a beautiful, expansive place Santa Fe is. The trip afforded me a visit to his ashen gravestone, one among many, row upon row, where I placed a tad bit of grace.
If life together in CBF can be described as our creative witness, then I want you to know, I choose this road, and I’m alive with wonder to whatever fresh expression we can bring from the margins to our tasks of living freely and faithfully on God’s good earth!