What a rush! Becoming a father, then grandfather, were amazing experiences and I have amazing children and grand-children! As a new great-grandfather, the feeling just expands.
The difference is that I have lived and experienced so much more of real life since I first experienced fatherhood. I love being a father, and there was a time when I wished that children came with operating instructions when they are born!
But I learned it isn’t about raising children for their place in a society that is self-preserving, but about creating a new, unique family/community unit.
The challenge is to discover each other’s true passion and nurture it so that is the source of our life.
What I now see, and my hopes for my great-grandson, come from observing my own life through what today’s culture and society will effect in his life. Sound strange? Can’t you remember when it looked like society stepped in and took over your child’s life? I don’t know, but maybe when he or she started school?
Right now, my great-grandson is filled with pure possibility. I could feel those energies when I held him.
I wonder what ‘gift’ he is bringing to the planet…..for he is providing something special, something unique that only he can contribute, in his own way.
In noticing this, I am excited for him, and he is therefore so very precious. For sure, what he enters life with, is another piece of what the world community needs and is awaiting.
I wonder what he sees when he opens his eyes and looks out at his strange world. He is so devoid of assessments, judgments, opinions and beliefs. He must be truly in the ‘now’, that which we adults spend so much time and effort to return to.
Yet, I am aware that he comes into our community, filled with many, many generations of life experiences buried in his genes. He will be pulled one way and then another by those urges. We all are, and the secret to life’s game is to become aware of that ‘genetic’ agenda, de-fuse it and put it aside, so we can fulfill what we are really here for!
The poet, e.e.cummings said…….
“To be nobody-but-yourself – in a world which is doing its best night and day to make you everybody else – means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting…
Does this sound dismal? It isn’t. It’s the most wonderful life on earth.”
Yes, that’s what really matters.
Rich