It's Friday evening (6/7/2014, the week before Father's Day). I began earlier to get things ready to welcome the Sabbath. I'm not Jewish, but it's something I like to learn about because it helps me understand more about who G-d is according to the Jewish tradition. Also, the Sabbath, because it was established on the 7th day of Creation when G-d rested from His works according to scriptures, has been considered sacred by some since the time of Adam, also considered one of the seven
Noahide laws, before it was given as one of the ten commandments to Moses for the children of Israel. (Genesis 2:1-4, Jubilees ii.16-33).
I was looking forward to welcoming the beautiful presence, the Shekinah glory, and the peace of Ha Kodesh. I started doing this a few months ago in my own small way, and now I don't like to miss it. I read somewhere that there is a tradition where some rabbis walk up the road to meet the Sabbath as it is approaching. So I tried this, walking eastward, up the road from my home to the end of the next block. I'm not a rabbi, or a scholar of the Torah - but I love to walk. There was a calmness, a coolness, and a gentle breeze, like in the description of Adam when he heard G-d walking in the Garden of Eden in the cool of the day. I wanted to keep going further, like making it into a prayer walk, but I didn't want to be away when it was time to light the candles. It was such a beautiful, quiet moment. Ever since then, I've tried to make sure that I have everything ready on time as much as possible for the Sabbath. It has helped me since I started to set aside the Sabbath day to rest, and I put aside my own pursuits, homework, etc., and I try to make it last from Friday evening until the early hours of Sunday morning.
One Sabbath I spent most of the day spying out the land, looking at the journey to locations on Google Earth where the children of Israel were led through the wilderness, from where they were thought to have crossed the Red Sea, and all the places along the way to
Mount Sinai, at Jebel el Lawz in Saudi Arabia, and the
Rock at Horeb, which looks like a split camel toe, etc. Most of the sites I looked at were in Saudi Arabia, rather than the usual Mount Sinai in Egypt, which never made sense to me if they were led out of Egypt that Mount Sinai would be back in Egypt, especially based on a tradition an Israeli soldier, Dan Tal, once told me, that Israelis are known for not having reverse, or back-up lights on their tanks. Moses was associated with Midian, so it seems he would have traveled towards the areas where he first encountered G-d in the desert when he fled from Egypt the first time. But the feeling I got when looking at the sites was like that of being in an empty theater. There were traces of drawings of footprints, drawings on altars, and even broken pillars and campsites left behind.
As the time for the Sabbath was about to begin, I lit the candles. I always light them all (one candle for my daughter, one for others I want to send good thoughts to, and one for myself ) and then I read the blessing from a Jewish website on my cell phone. I like to read it in Hebrew - I can still read the Hebrew alef bet, although I don't know much of the vocabulary. But, when I study the Hebrew words, there are meanings that are easily lost when translated into English. Such as "Abba," a more intimate word for "Father," more like "Daddy," "Alef-Bet-Alef, The Alef is the symbol for an ox, or strength. Bet is the symbol for a house with a door. So, for example, a father is the strength of the house, as well as the door to it.
Something that came to my mind this week when I was lighting the candles and reciting the blessing was about G-d being our loving heavenly Father. I was listening to a message by Joseph Prince one evening this week and he said that G-d's purpose in sending Ye'shua was to reveal the love of the heavenly Father for the world. A
loving heavenly Father. During
Joseph Prince's message, he sang an old hymn, "you will always be a child in my eyes, -- and even when you're growing old, I hope you'll realize, you will always be a child in my eyes." This song came back to my mind as I was lighting the candles and I wondered why I hadn't realized this before in my own life, that even though I can believe it is true about G-d
for others, I never really knew how to connect that
He is a loving heavenly Father
to me.
I started to realize that, emotionally, I had put G-d "up on a pedestal," high on my "G-d-shelf," thinking He belongs there, of course; but I kept him at a safe distance - at arm's length, above my head even. I thought, this seems reasonable because after all, he told Moses to tell the children of Israel to stand back and not even touch the boundary that he set up around Mt. Sinai when he came to meet the people and entered into a covenant with them, giving them his instructions.
Your G-d is a consuming fire! Moses warned the people to stay back so that the fire of G-d would not break out against them if they crossed the line to get a closer look at him.
As a small child, I remember once my sister and I peering through the mostly closed door to my parents room to watch my dad while he was practicing a speech in front of the mirror. Compared to many dads, I considered my dad a mostly perfect father. I admired him very much. He got upset sometimes, and he was upset that I was curious and spying on him, interrupting him as he practiced a speech for work the next day. He was an electrical engineer, about to become head of the planning and engineering department of the OG&E electric company. So, I can understand, or relate to a concept of G-d that does the things this G-d of Moses does. He had to keep a separation and a mediator, a slightly opened/closed door, between him and the people, which was Moses. But, I didn't understand how to see this G-d as a
loving heavenly Father. Holy, good, responsible, a protector and provider, yes, but loving? What did that
look like?
When I was trying to imagine G-d as a loving heavenly Father, I suddenly re-member-ed something I had forgotten about for many years until now. Friday night was also the time chosen to be my "date night" with my dad when I was between 9 to 10 years old. My parents were going through a divorce and it was very heartbreaking. At first my dad had to get a hotel room downtown close to the office where he worked so that my mom could keep the car and the house so she could take care of my brother, my sister, and myself. The hotel was for
men only and he had only one room to live in with a shared bathroom down the hall. My dad let us stop by one evening and he snuck us in to see his place because I was having nightmares about something bad happening to him.
He and my mother made arrangements for us to be able to see my dad on the weekends, but since my sister and I couldn't spend the night with him until he got his own apartment, he made plans to spend special time every week with each one of us. He said he would pick me up on Friday nights to spend time together and take me out to a movie or to dinner. After the movie, he said he would take me back home, drop me off, and pick up my brother, who would spend Friday and Saturday night with him at his hotel. Then he would come back on Sunday and take my younger sister on an outing for the day. My sister was about 6 years old at the time.
A picture of my dad, Eldon, before he graduated
from Capital Hill High School - an
'OG' - original greaser! (1950's)
I loved and admired my dad very much. I never doubted that he loved us because he always did his best and worked hard to provide for our family. He went to night school after he got out of the army, training to be an electrical engineer while working for the electric company. My mom said most of his co-workers were getting second jobs to support their growing families, but she agreed we could do without the extras so he could go to night school. He was under a great deal of stress with work and trying to study. I always felt uncomfortable around my dad because he seemed on edge. He was very nervous and would get upset, or sometimes lose his temper at us, and I felt like I could do nothing right. I missed him when he was gone, but I was nervous when he came home. So, in a way I was relieved when he wasn't home, and at the same time I missed him when he was gone.
I know my dad wanted the best for me, even as a small child I was sure of that; but emotionally, I was very insecure in his love for me. He was angry one night with my mom when things started getting worse before their separation and they were fighting. He was trying to cook something and my mom was talking to him and she reached out to hold onto his arm. He pulled back suddenly and she lost her balance and fell back onto the floor. He tried to kick her away when she was down on the floor; he was pulling on the silverware drawer at the same time, which pulled out and the silverware, along with the drawer, went clanging and banging all over the floor. It was more frightening than violent, but I ran to help my mom. I was crying and asking my dad not to be mad, but he was too upset. He told my mom to get out, and he looked at me and said, "you can just go with your mom, since you love your mother so much!" You always knew when my dad was too mad because his eyes would dance back and forth nervously.
It was night-time and raining out, and my mom and I were both crying. He picked me up and carried me out to the car and made me go with my mom. I loved them both, but when I saw my mom fall onto the floor I was nearby, sitting on the floor of the living room where I had been watching something on T.V. Suddenly, she was on my level. I just wanted to protect my mom from being hurt, but my dad was also hurting. However, this was the first time I felt my dad disown me. His words stung like electricity and my face felt numb from shock and shame, as if he had hit me. His words were stinging in my ears. My parents separated after that and I didn't see my dad for a while. I later realized that people say things when they're angry or hurt that they don't mean, but it can be damaging at the time.
After some time had passed, my dad came to pick me up one Friday night for our first Friday night visit. He had made plans to take me to the movies. My dad always liked to plan everything ahead of time. He was a really good planner, which helped us have a sense of stability growing up. I was ready by Monday also planning what to wear, what to bring, and all week I was looking forward to seeing my dad and spending time together. It felt strange to be going someplace alone with my dad. We didn't usually get to do things together, just the two of us. I hoped it would be a time to become closer to my dad. At the same time, I felt awkward, nervous, anxious, and afraid I might do something wrong.
We went to the Knob Hill Theater. After we bought tickets we went inside to see the movie. We found some seats midway to the front, and sat down near the isle. Once the movie started, after a few minutes, my dad told me he was going to go smoke a cigarette and make a phone call. I said I would be okay, because I thought I would be. I knew I should be fine. However, after he left, I started feeling really anxious. It felt like he didn't like being there with me. Then, I wondered if maybe he really didn't like
me. I felt like I wanted to cry.
The theater was full of adults and other families, but it wasn't like a Saturday morning matinee when there were mostly kids running around without their parents. I sat in the dark theater looking around, trying to see if I could see my dad and wanting to be invisible. He said he would be in the lobby to use the phone and then go up in the balcony area to smoke, and that he would be able to see me. But I couldn't see him up in the dark balcony, only the glaring reflection of the flickering lights on eye glasses, the red glowing tips of burning cigarettes and a few pillar-like clouds of smoke with flashings of light shooting out from the projector, which drifted and hovered over the theater, juxtaposing the smoke with the flashing lights like clouds with lightening.
I'm sure he thought I was just sitting and enjoying the movie. I was trying to act grown up because I didn't want to disappoint him, but the longer I sat there, the more I also wanted to run and hide. Was I just being a big baby? I knew my dad wanted to call his girlfriend, someone he was seeing at the time that he had to skip a date with to take me to the movie, and they might talk for
hours. I felt terrible. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to find him again. At the same time, I knew he wouldn't leave me there. I sat alone in the movie, but I don't remember how long or when he came back, if it was a long time, or if I had to walk out to the lobby and find him when the movie ended. I don't even remember what movie I watched. I also don't remember if we went to dinner first. I don't remember if we got popcorn, or if I asked for lemon drops at the movie. There was a Jerry Lewis movie that came out that year (1966),
Three on a Couch, and I think it may have been that one. My dad knew how much I liked Jerry Lewis, although he didn't like to watch him much, because he thought he was too silly for grown-ups.
Whatever my insecurities were, as I got older I realized the reasons for the misunderstandings, but I didn't experience a very close
loving relationship with my father. We went through harder times when I was a teenager. He didn't want me to make bad decisions for my life; but at the time, threatening me made me feel even more anxious and rejected. The next time he disowned me again I was sixteen, he told me to get out of his car, saying that he didn't want to see me again and he said I was worthless. He accused me of sneaking out at night and being a bad influence on my sister, although it was my sister who was sneaking out and I didn't want to tell on her. This time he left me beside the curb with my suitcase downtown near my job one morning where he dropped me off on his way to work. I was sixteen and working as a receptionist in an office downtown.
A friend who was teaching me how to drive a standard-shift car also worked for OG&E, the electric company where my dad worked. My friend was a meter-reader and saw a garage apartment for rent for only $75 a month! The elderly lady that rented it out to me was a widow, she was very kind. She made me a birthday cake unexpectedly, because it was my seventeenth birthday soon after I moved in. My dad and I went through long periods when we didn't speak, and there were times when things improved some, but it was always a painful subject. He would also threaten that I was not going to be included in his will when we disagreed. But I didn't care about his money, I only wanted things to be better between us.
My mom was married to my step-dad at the time. They were alcoholics. My dad was also going to AA to get help, and was successful in his career, but my mom and step-dad were struggling and my step-dad would get violent when he drank. My step-dad didn't let us stay with my mom without causing problems for her. He had lost his dad in a mining cave-in when he was a small child, so his mother lost her husband, her brother, and her father in that same accident. She was so devastated, she put her two sons up for adoption, so she lost them as well. They grew up in the Baptist Boys Home, and he said he experienced a lot of abuse there. He and my mother also had a baby and she had nowhere else to go when they fought.
My dad was there for me in many practical ways growing up, even though we had difficulty relating to each other. I don't think he ever intended to hurt me, he just didn't want me to make mistakes and maybe he didn't know how to help me. His idea of life was like swimming or riding a bike, you either sink or swim. I wish I had known how to speak to him and be closer before he died (in 1994). He began to be more supportive and called me more often when my daughter, Ariele, was born, so we had a chance to become closer. But he lived out of town after he retired, so I didn't get to see him very often. He and his wife came to take Ariele and I to dinner when she was a year old. His wife took Ariele for a walk for a few minutes to keep her from crying when she became restless. As I sat across from my dad, with no mediator, I still remember feeling so nervous and painfully self-conscious. I still felt like that frightened child, even though I knew things had changed. We still didn't know how to communicate, but at least we were trying, and that was a good thing.
I also didn't realize until I remembered the Friday night at the movie with my dad that, emotionally, part of me was still sitting back in that dark theater in my mind, and that, subconsciously, it had been keeping me from understanding and knowing G-d as
my loving heavenly Father. I felt like I always needed a mediator with my dad, which was usually my older brother, my mom, or aunt, or my step-mom. I used to hide behind my brother when we got into trouble, and I was projecting all my negative feelings from my experience with my dad onto G-d. I was so anxious at the time I can't remember the details of the good things about the time I spent with my dad that night at the movie.
We read
King Lear in class recently as well; just before reading
The Tempest. It was the first time I had read the entire play. I almost didn't go to class that day because it wrecked me to talk about it. It reminded me so much of my dad and our relationship.
Why didn't Cordelia speak to her father? She said, "love and be silent." When she found her father again in his tragic condition, she said to someone else, "He awakes, you speak to him." Was she being prideful or unforgiving? Maybe she didn't want to upset him further. I don't believe it is because she was being harsh, or at a loss for words. I think she was still stung in a way, numb from the shock of being disowned, and that she also didn't want to violate his wishes not to speak to her. She still loved her father and wouldn't want to make matters worse or alienate him even more, so she stayed busy doing her father's business, looking out for him. Although, as he said, "nothing comes of nothing."
I heard a song this week,
"One Thing Remains" that said, "Your love never fails, it never gives up, it never runs out on me." I could feel the words sinking into my heart. It felt like my heavenly Father was coming to sit with me in the dark theater of my mind, reassuring me of his love.
His loving-kindness. My parents had to put me on tranquilizers for a while when they were going through their divorce, because I kept breaking out in a rash from anxiety. My dad got his own apartment soon after our night at the movies, so I don't remember going together alone after that. But he did get me a nice cassette player with a small cassette tape of the Beatles' release "Hey Jude," and other songs for my birthday, not too long after that. Now, I am enjoying the Sabbath and a great sense of '
Shalom,' on a Friday night "date-night" with
my loving heavenly Father. If I knew how to communicate in a way that would break every silence of separation, I would also
speak. My lips are already moving, as Hannah's did, silently in prayer for a child; though I, like a child, only need to be reconciled.
[
A Prayer of Moses, Man of G-d ] G-d, it seems you’ve been our home forever; long before the mountains were born, Long before you brought earth itself to birth, from "once upon a time" to "kingdom come"
—you are G-d. So don’t return us to mud, saying, "Back to where you came from!" Patience! You’ve got all the time in the world
—whether a thousand years or a day, it’s all the same to you. Are we no more to you than a wispy dream, no more than a blade of grass That springs up gloriously with the rising sun and is cut down without a second thought? Your anger is far and away too much for us; we’re at the end of our rope. You keep track of all our sins; every misdeed since we were children is entered in your books. All we can remember is that frown on your face. Is that all we’re ever going to get? We live for seventy years or so (with luck we might make it to eighty), And what do we have to show for it? Trouble. Toil and trouble and a marker in the graveyard. Who can make sense of such rage, such anger against the very ones who fear you?
Psalm 90:2,4 MSG
Genesis:8 When they heard the sound of G-d strolling in the garden in the evening breeze, the Man and his Wife hid in the trees of the garden, hid from G-d.
9 G-d called to the Man: “Where are you?”
10 He said, “I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked. And I hid.”
11 G-d said, “Who told you you were naked? Did you eat from that tree I told you not to eat from?”
12 The Man said, “The Woman you gave me as a companion, she gave me fruit from the tree, and, yes, I ate it.”
G-d said to the Woman, “What is this that you’ve done?”
13 “The serpent seduced me,” she said, “and I ate.”
14-15 G-d told the serpent:
“Because you’ve done this, you’re cursed,
cursed beyond all cattle and wild animals,
Cursed to slink on your belly
and eat dirt all your life.
I’m declaring war between you and the Woman,
between your offspring and hers.
He’ll wound your head,
you’ll wound his heel.”
16 He told the Woman:
“I’ll multiply your pains in childbirth;
you’ll give birth to your babies in pain.
You’ll want to please your husband,
but he’ll lord it over you.”
17-19 He told the Man:
“Because you listened to your wife
and ate from the tree
That I commanded you not to eat from,
‘Don’t eat from this tree,’
The very ground is cursed because of you;
getting food from the ground
Will be as painful as having babies is for your wife;
you’ll be working in pain all your life long.
The ground will sprout thorns and weeds,
you’ll get your food the hard way,
Planting and tilling and harvesting,
sweating in the fields from dawn to dusk,
Until you return to that ground yourself, dead and buried;
you started out as dirt, you’ll end up dirt.”
20 The Man, known as Adam, named his wife Eve because she was the mother of all the living.
21 G-d made leather clothing for Adam and his wife and dressed them.
22 G-d said, “The Man has become like one of us, capable of knowing everything, ranging from good to evil. What if he now should reach out and take fruit from the Tree-of-Life and eat, and live forever? Never—this cannot happen!”
23-24 So G-d expelled them from the Garden of Eden and sent them to work the ground, the same dirt out of which they’d been made. He threw them out of the garden and stationed angel-cherubim and a revolving sword of fire east of it, guarding the path to the Tree-of-Life.
This used to be the Knob Hill Theater.
It was later named the Oklahoma Opry Theater.
It is still there today, empty and ready to be put to good use.
Located in the Capitol Hill district at
404 W. Commerce (S.W. 25th Street) in Oklahoma City,
A Department of Human Services building sits just across the street
where a large department store used to be (that once had a fish tank with live Piranhas for sale!)
The theater was built in 1946.
It was air conditioned, modern, with comfortable seating,
the latest in projection and sound, with every facility,
including a "cry room," a "smoking room,"
and 2 acres of free parking.
(I could have made good use of the crying room.)
And Today, this theater has one less ghost.
