Carys Comma

Caribou,

You shock the ancestry - the lineage. The history of you before and the you that is yet to be pivots on your momentous now.

You... Now...

The You Now savages the timeline with your temporal compassion.

The You Now enforces the immediacy of the present.

The You Now puts me on my heels, and prompts me to recognize your alien propiniquity... your salvific proximity.

I have always been a creature of the past, and sometimes the future. But, the present... that is where I struggle. This must create a tension.

I want to be better... 

... like you.

Dad

Carys Comma

Caribou,

I am happiest when we are all together - when we are in each other's presence.

Happiness has been a mystery to me for a long time. You have taught me so much about it, When you are happy, you are luminous and intoxicating. You are able to enchant everyone in your vicinity with your gaiety. Typically, your joy is on display when you will purposefully do something ridiculous, and then, in response to your own actions break out in to a fit of wild giggles. Your hilarity spreads to your susceptible mother and your less willing brother. And I, well I'm also swept up into all that is you.

But, these moments fill me with awe. I am awed by you and your joyous capacity.

Since the day you were born, you have exercised an incredible power over this family. You hypnotize us with incantations of your very self. The energy of your spirit flows into out lives and it energizes us. Your power is like that of the Sun, which rises even after the darkest night.

Thank you for being you, my daughter. I hope you always are.


Dad  

Carys Comma

Generated

My Daughter,

The path ahead was made by fire.

Strata ascending.

The pain of its heat, the burn of the evolving is that which churns the new.

I read about a man who pulled a 92 pound Petoskey stone out of Lake Michigan. How had that mass made its way to the surface? How many centuries had pushed it forth? What sort of conflagration pushed it upward and out?

I showed you pictures of Etna erupting. It belched fearless. We looked at the powerfully lit emanations of a tectonic mountain. We saw heat that was a tephric unguent.  We saw the surface of the earth burned and singed by material that had once been beneath, and the landscape was made new. Generations flowing from depths unseen, in an intractable ascent.

Potential unearthed by explosions of change.

May I always bow beneath your fire.

May I walk the path ahead.

--

Carys Comma

My Daughter,

I was told tonight to go outside, in the darkness and observe the Lights of North.

I saw something that I thought was aurora borealis, but it was a dull flicker. My observation gleaned some primal truth however.

I saw darkness from horizon to horizon.  This dark was interrupted only by stars.  The stars were brilliant and bright and a reminder that I was one of many fathers looking at the brightness of the dark sky.

You are a bright and shining celestial - a radiant of love. You shine even in the darkest sky.

my father moved through dooms of love
through sames of am through haves of give,
singing each morning out of each night

-ee cummings

Carys Comma

Caribou,

Your defiance has brought you a lot of confusion and struggle, I know. It almost always ends with you losing something - some privilege or hope. But it burns hot within you still. 

I've tried blaming your mother for this particular personality trait in you. She is a redhead, after all. However, I should take my share of the credit. So much of my life has been spent in defiance - bucking the system and pushing the envelope - and I feel a little lost when there is no cause to champion or cross to bear. So, I'm sure I have some part in your fire. 

I hope yours is a fire we never extinguish - a passion unlimited. It has to be controlled, it has to be used for a transcendent good. And if it is - it could change the trajectory of our time, our story. 

Your mother and I have no idea how to help you learn about this fire or how to control this heat. But please keep up the fight and perhaps we will learn. Together. 

Dad

Carys Comma

Where do you find it?

Is there a well within you? Or does it flow through you like you're amidst a river?

Some people call it spunk or attitude, but that is demeaning and starved.

It emanates in the worst moments and the best. It reveals itself as an insistent love and sometimes a guileless rage. 

It is when you scream in protest and when you glare with scorn. It is when you demand to be carried, and cared for, and cuddled and hugged. It is when you remind me of my promises and scold me for my lies. 

It is when you grab my face 

with two insistent tiny hands

And whisper

(Too loudly)

That you love me. 

It is your courage and strength. 

It is when you are you -

My beloved, magical Carys. 

Daddy

Carys Comma

Carybou,

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness

- Karl Marx

Do you even need anything to believe in? Do you require a transcendent ladder, an elevated plane for which to strive and for which to hope?

Some of us have needed such things, in our days.

... the nightly hauntings
... the friendless excursions
... the sleepless remembrances

The Ancients found the tragedies and regrets to be too much. They looked to the skies, pleading for mercy, praying to the day and the night. The heavens were silent, but for the blowing wind. So, the Ancients made hopes tangible. Delicate were the movements of their careful hands, as they created tenuous deities, and fragile faiths.

The people who we once were, fell to their knees, built edifices, worshipped, and sang with all their might, while justice remained a dream. Happiness unfound.

Awakened, the edifices are falling silent; though, we have yet to find our joy. Unbelieving, we yearn to believe. But, is it belief we want? Or is it the happiness?

Happiness. It flows from you unbelieving and untrue. It is beautiful and sanctified.

Carys Comma

My Carybou,

I never meant for you to be this way. I never intentionally shaped you into what you are. I never tried to make you think the way you think, act the way you act, or feel the way you feel.

Have I tried to influence you? Of course.

Have I maybe been too controlling and manipulative? Unfortunately, yes.

But, none of it has worked. You are who you are despite me.

Despite me.

It is some deep and lovely thing that has steered you to your present. It was not me who made you so
opinionated so
passionate so
vibrant so
funny so
absolutely beautiful. So Breathtaking.

Whatever that thing is that made you who you are - do me a favor and follow that before you follow me!


Dada

Carys Comma

My Daughter,

I was watching you the other day. Such a thing is not hard to do. You present a chaotic joy that is delightful.It always amazes me to witness the grace with which you bounce and dance through your waking hours. It is both rhythmic and random.

Your brother is very different. His day is less of a chaotic dance, and more of a methodical meandering. He plods through his waking hours like a curious botanist in a field of flowers. Every step is a another discovery for him.

You are both so different from one another. Yet, I realized while I was watching you both that you adore your brother. When he is away at school, you regularly ask whether it is time to go get him, and when it will be time to get him. Then, when it is finally time, you are delighted, with smile alit. You follow him through the house, mimicking his actions words, and sentiments. His opinion is needed for almost anything you do or think. He is probably as large an influence on you as is your silent, watching father.

Yet, you have an independence about you that I see reinterpreting Caedmon. There is none of Caedmon's careful plod in you. While mimicking him and walking in his footsteps, you do so with your own rhythm - an elated chaos.

You are the apple of my eye and your wonderful brother is the pride of my heart. Nothing delights me more than your happiness, and watching you walk through this world in your own way.

May your dancing be blessed.


Dada

Carys Comma

My Daughter,

I wrote this in 2005. Perhaps one day you will be able to tell me what it means,

Dada

Mascara

And the bells clang for you as I sit at the piano without a song to play. But the bells don’t say as much as bad golf and the falling leaves. The bells don’t speak as loudly as the apple cider and the running mascara, drifting down the face of someone too young to have memories that horrify.

And the church organ plays for you, but it doesn’t get it quite right. For there is more than the notes and pipes, there’s the passion and the poem about a ruthless, savage wordsmith just trying to be alone.

You want to talk about it?

No.

Then why are you here?

I dunno.

And the preacher preaches, but he comes up short. He can yack all he wants but the real sermon’s when he stammers and stumbles and asks for help from a stranger passing by. But, the stranger is too busy – he has miles to go before he sleeps. Miles to go before he sleeps with a wife who is no longer impressed with his tweed jackets and creativity.

 And we all fall down to our sleep nights and beds and startling paranoia of the dark, where beautiful things live and wait to be tarnished by the resentments of our minds.

You ever tell your parents how you feel?

No.

Why not?

I dunno.

And I don’t know either. But, when I wake to bells, organs and stammering preachers on the air; I know  that none of it comes close. I’m just along for the ride.

Carys Comma

My Daughter,

They look like us, act like us, and touch like us. They're everywhere, and nowhere. They pass us on the street and smile.

I wonder if I could be one of them. I wonder if you could be one of them. It is more likely that you could.

They've been watching us. They are always watching and waiting for their moment to strike.


"I want you to have this."

"No, I couldn't."

"Please. I just feel like I should give this to you."

"It is too much."

"It is not enough. Just take it. Please, let me do this. "


What grace fills hearts so full? Why is it so random and rare - so unexpected?

“You do not have to sit outside in the dark. If, however, you want to look at the stars, you will find that darkness is necessary. But the stars neither require nor demand it.” ― Annie Dillard

Carys Comma

My Daughter, 

We keep trying to see through the fog of meaninglessness and maybe catch a glimpse of something beautiful. I am glad that I saw you. 

Dada

Carys Comma

My Daughter,

It has been 4 months since I last worshiped God.  Friends are getting concerned.

"What is going on?" a friend asked, "what do you think God is calling you to do, now?"
I don't think God has called me to do anything, other than what he has called everyone else to do.

"Yes, but, what is he saying to you?"
I haven't heard from him in a while. I was always taught that God is some chatty micromanager that's always sending down personal little messages and directions, but I realized that is probably not the case.

"That is the saddest thing I have ever heard."
Is it? I found it to be quite freeing.

"Don't you have a relationship with God?"
He has my number. I think I have his.

"Wow. This is all quite the change."
Yes, I think I am a better father to my kids. At least, I am now trying.

All this personal relationship spiritual mumbo jumbo has bothered me for a long time. It seems so self-centered.

They say God is always with you. Somebody told me that every time I sin, I reignite the pain of Christ's crucifixion wounds. Really? I have that kind of power over a god-man? I doubt it.

We want to think that God is a buddy that comes along next to us and tells us when to turn left and when to turn right, but I just can't believe that is the case. It is rare that I have heard from him at all. Yet, more common has been the impenetrable isolation of mistakes I have made on my own, and triumphs.

Unfortunately, my faith taught me how to be a self-centered ego-maniac. I learned that even God is in orbit around my important life. Now, as those old patterns fade and old beliefs crumble, I see how small I am. This realization bends my knees in worship to a deity much greater than I ever considered before.

God is no friend, no buddy. God is no masochistic sufferer.

God is.

An amazing thing happens when life is put into perspective. You start to look around and see true significance. I found that I spent so long looking for a tiny speck of light in the sky, when the whole world was illuminated with a fervent glow. The light of God is all around. It is so glorious and huge and bright that it  goes unnoticed, like the canvas of  painting.

Such is the salvation of doubt. Such is the hope of this descent - headlong into truth.

 Sometimes, we even fall hopelessly into a new orbit. We become victims to a gravitational force that is - for the first time - not our own.

When we fall, we descend like reluctant acolytes forced to worship the gravitational deity - flailing, screaming, useless. And that is how I have loved you. I am a reluctant father, disarmed by a joyous plunge. Such is your gravity, my Dear, lovely daughter!

And I can hear God - calling.

Dada  

Carys Comma

Be Strong.

I tell you and your brother that all the time. Usually, somebody is crying or so frustrated with circumstances that it seems like the only way to react. I often fear that I sound like a jerk more than a loving father. Maybe I am both. What I am trying to say to you guys is that the struggles in life are opportunities for us to be strong. During such times we face a stark and brutal choice: we can overcome the injustice or let the injustice overcome us.

The world around us is a bit mixed up about strength. The world spends a lot of time trying to implode and inflict harm. Why? Because we that populate this planet are full of ambition, greed, and worse. So, as an expression of our inner values, we declare the person most apt to kick the crap out of somebody else to be the stronger.

There is a dark honesty toward submitting to the most violent among us. Unfortunately, it makes for a terrible place to live.

There is another way - a better way. There is a deeper and better strength. The deeper strength belongs to the woman who can overcome hatred, to a person who can reconcile. The deepest strength resides in the person who can stand true to their values without violating them at the same time.

But, a word of caution. In our messed up world, the deepest strength is sometimes thought of as weak.

My daughter, I hope you can remember that strength - true strength - is not a measurement of our muscle mass or our ability to endure. Instead, true strength is the measurement of our moral fiber. True strength is a living pronouncement of how dedicated we are to what is right and good.

I so want you to be strong, even if that makes you weak.



Dada

image source: DeviantArt

Carys Comma

It is not that I am crazy, I'm just numb... constantly.

A long time ago ( I was 17) a bunch of stuff came crashing down on me at once. There was messiness, there was family drama and there was a pretty laughable suicide attempt. People asked me if I wanted to die. I don't know. I think it was just a natural end to the lunacy of my life at the time.

But, I have done fairly well since. I do it for you. You shouldn't ever have to live with somebody who stares through you with a nauseating numbness. You shouldn't be loved by anyone who can hardly get out of bed each day. You are far too beautiful and full of magic to experience such a depressing fate. To me, you are the reality of Almighty God incarnate - the proof of hope.

So, I press on for you, my darling light.


Dada

Carys Comma

My Daughter,

Here is a story about faith:

Once there was a small village that was attacked by a dragon. The dragon crushed houses, killed townspeople and burned the whole village to the ground. Left sitting in the charred remains of her town was a young girl. While mourning her loved ones, the girl resolved to do whatever she could to find some way to defeat the dragon.

Defeating the dragon seemed impossible until she heard people make mention of something called the Old Blade. The Old Blade was a sword that was said to give the wielder abilities to accomplish great feats, like slaying dragons. The problem, though, was that the ancient artifact that had been lost for generations.

Immediately, the girl knew she had found her solution. She vowed before the whole village not to return to her home until the Old Blade was found. Then, she set out to. The quest was not easy. The girl suffered, starved, and fought her way through some of the most difficult terrain and difficult people. From one end of the world to another, she searched and she allowed nothing to stand in her way. She grew strong and became a mighty adventurer. She accomplished deeds that almost seemed magical. Her name became legend.

The girl became a woman as many years passed, and she finally returned to the village. People gathered around her and welcomed her back. They were impressed with her radiant appearance and intimidating confidence. She looked as if she could do anything. They asked if they would now be safe from the Dragon and she answered that they now would. They asked if she had found the Old Blade and she said that she had.

“May we see the magical weapon?” they eagerly asked.

To their shock, she responded by revealing that she did not bring the artifact back with her. Despairing, the people questioned why she would go through so much and then not return with the Blade.

“Because,” the great adventurer responded, “it now seems obsolete.”

May you fear none of this world's dragons, my daughter.

Dad

Carys Comma

Where did all this come from? All this shameless truth and hope? It all bleeds from you in every grimace and smile.

Do such gifts emanate from your soul? If they do, then your soul must outsize mine. It must be the size of an ocean and growing. It floods and fills our lives. The torrent of your beauty pushes through doors that are supposed to be locked and secret places that I hoped would remain hidden.

But, your shameless flood is too powerful to withstand. Your innocent joy illuminates even my darkest places. You should be sanctified, my daughter, as a sacrament - a gift from God. May God never let me forget the gift that you are- a holy and acceptable flood of his beauty and grace.

   

Carys Comma

I want you to be wise about what’s good, 

and innocent about what’s evil. 

Daughter of my Heart, 


My Dad (your Papa/grampa) was just one in a line of poor farmers. His parents were simple people with a depth that was both broken and beautiful. They passed on a simple wisdom to my Dad that he used like a compass to guide him through the strange, harsh brokenness that they also gave to him. 


He believes in hard work. 
He believes in dedication to family. 
He believes in doing your best. 


Your grampa had no idea how to raise a family, and he had no idea how to guide three little boys through a divorce and the death of their mother. Yet, at the same time, he was perfect for the task. He approached the terrible reality with a simple resolution - he worked hard, loved much, and did the best that he could. 


He passed on to me his simple resoluteness and his complex brokenness. He has plenty to be ashamed of in raising your uncles and I, but he has so much more to be proud of. 


Growing up, whenever we would leave the house, he would always tell us the same thing 'Be good.' To this day, he ends phone conversations by telling me to 'be good.' 


It is a simple and straightforward parental edict, yet it carries with it a mighty weight of responsibility. 


My prayer for you echoes my father's simple edict. I pray that you would be good - not for me or your mother. I hope that you are good for yourself, and your happiness and for the elusive confidence whose  absences carves at our hearts and fills the new cave with guilt. 


Your goodness is your happiness. So, be good. Be so good that you are filled with a simple, broken, unconquerable  joy. 

 

Carys Comma

My daughter,

Two years. You have been here with us for two years, now. In that two years, you have clearly tried to teach us that you are your own person. You've got your own style and your own way of seeing the world. At times, it has been hard for me to accept this lesson. I'm kinda old school and I like to be in charge. But, please, keep teaching me. One day, I hope to finally figure it out.

It has been an amazing two years, Carys. You are so beautiful, so full of life. You are the truest thing I have ever known.

Love,

Dada

Carys Comma

“Wake up, O sleeper,

rise from the dead,

and Christ will shine on you.”

My Daughter,

Why am I telling you this? I am certainly not telling you to wake up. Instead, I am telling you the opposite. Sleep. Sleep, my child, as long as you can. For sleep lasts only so long and then what?

Some years ago, I awoke, startled, and barely recalling a dream. When I awoke, looked around me to find a room so vast that no walls could be seen. The ceiling was low, as if not meant for any person to stand. All around me were cots filled with sleeping people. There were hundreds, thousands... all sleeping.

I crawled around for a while. I tried to wake others up. I tried to make sense of this endless sleeping, this huge place of slumber. But no one wanted to wake up. Nobody wanted to believe that life was anything more than dreams. These sleepers were not happy with me. They kicked me, lashed out at me, and held fast to their sleep and their dreams. I now know why. Here in this Awakening I can see the blessedness of the Dream.

There was a point I even tried to go back to sleep, to recapture the dream. But, it was no use. After a life time of sleep, I can not go back from whence I came, and the Dream is gone as soon as you realize what it really is.

So, now, I wander, in and out of cots, crawling in darkness amongst the satisfied sleepers. If this place has days, then every day I feel no superiority to the sleepers, only regret. I am filled with regret - regret for something I did not do.

I can't help but wonder. Why did I wake up? Why am I forced to be a refugee? I did not choose it, yet I can not undo it. I am forced to listen to the gentle breathing of the Unconscious, and I am filled with a miserable envy.

In the moments after I had first woke up, it seemed to me that the vast room was lit by a distant light. The light was coming from somewhere that I thought was the East. But, that Awakening was long ago. I wonder if such light can only be seen by those who sleep, for it has been long since I saw it last.

Dada