Dear Son,

Today I heard a man talking about being a Shabbos goy.    What is a Shabbos goy, you ask?

A Shabbos goy, Shabbat goy or Shabbes goy (Yiddish: שבת גוי) is a non-Jew who performs certain types of work (melakha) which Jewish religious law (halakha) enjoins the Jew from doing on the Sabbath.

He described his relationship with his next door neighbor, an Orthodox Rabbi, who invites him over to his brownstone on the Sabbath to assist with tasks which require labor or use of modern equipment. For example, the rabbi might ask this man if he is warm, in an attempt to get him to turn on the air conditioning. Or perhaps he might ask if the man is hungry, so he will prepare some food.

It got me thinking;  When is it that I need assistance to do the things I can’t do for myself?  Or when am I called to be of service to others when they need me?  We can’t do the journey alone.   And sometimes other people, with different experiences, may be better equipped to help us achieve certain tasks in life.  Asking for help it a courageous skill.   Many don’t do it until it is too late.   Surround yourself with people who can fill in the gaps of your life when you don’t have the skills or are unable to carry yourself.   In The Big Book of AA, we say; “we will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.”

Similarly, be of service to others.  This life can be hard and lonely.   Providing the world with our talents is step one, but the we can also seek out others to lend a helping hand.  It might be volunteering in the community, our church, school, hospitals, shelters… or simply to a neighbor or friend in need.  Your Perkins, Foxworthy and Barber families have a tradition of giving back to the community.   There are many people before you who believed that it was our duty to share the burden of our society.   I believe the same.   As a child I volunteered often through Boy Scouts, Church and School.   One day I will share with you the “Pixie Circle” story of the Christmas Dindy had us visit the Cratchits.

Remember, that we are one unified human race.  So regardless of color, culture, religious belief, or nationality, we are all God’s children and part of a human race.   When one suffers, we all suffer.   Look to where you can ease the troubles of your fellow man.  Look to where you can lift him or her up.  Look to where you can fill in the gaps.  Look to where you can be a shabbos goy.  And in return, you will be supported.

Love, Your Dad

 

Dear Amon,

If there were ever three qualities to employ in life during the toughest times, they are:

Laughter, Curiosity  & Kindness

Laughter:  having a sense of humor about everything, even the most seemingly sad, dark or frustrating things in our lives will be your ally.  Surround yourself with people who also chose to be light of heart and see the nonsense in the human experience.   Not only does laughter lighten your heart and soften the heavy hard edges of fear, it also allows you to let go of the structured ideas and see things in a whole new way.  It’s not all so serious my son.

Curiosity:  I’ve referenced this before in other letters, but I have found that looking at life with the objective lens of a third-party observer can be very useful.  Life is a series of good days and bad.  A multi-colored collage of experiences, non stop.   It’s easy to feel like we are tethered to a ship at sea in a storm, where our mood, emotions and stability is dependent on other people, places and things.  When we look at everything as if it s happening to us, it’s hard not to take it all personally.  It is personal.  Very personal.   But when we observe the outside world and what effect it has on us as if we were an outsider to the experience, we can learn to see patterns and solutions we might see otherwise.   Many times over recent years I have found myself saying “this is familiar.  I’ve been here before.  And what I know about these kinds of experiences is ____.  No one left me. I didn’t end up living in a ditch, or I didn’t die.”    Oftentimes it just comes down to that.   Being curious about life gives us more perspective and ultimately humility.

Kindness:  In today’s time, everyone seems to be focused on winning.  And people classify themselves as being part of the winning team.    People seem to be locked into their own needs and positions and rarely do I come across individuals who are willing to put aside their own positions in order to chose to be loving and kind to others.   It’s not always easy and we are taught by society to look out for #1.   Can you win and I win at the same time? We sure can.    But really, it’s not even about the win, but about how you play the game.   Your Dindy has a  little framed saying above her computer desk at home that says, “At the end of the game, the King and the Pawn go back into the same box.”   Treat everyone with love and respect and you will love and respect yourself even more in the end.

Love, Daddy

 

 

Dearest Amon,

One of the greatest gifts we can give to ourselves is an openness – both an open mind and heart – to cultivate in ourselves the willingness to see the world through the eyes of others.  Other genders, races, cultures, orientations of all kinds.  Too often the greatest battles and the smallest feuds begin with a hard lined view of what is right or wrong according to our own world-view.  When we take the time to soften the edges of our belief systems, we can we begin to make out the fuzzy-lined edges of a new reality.  A different reality.  Someone else’s reality.  Not right or wrong.  Just different from ours.

Going through life without bias or judgement is nearly impossible.  Our beliefs and even values come from our unique walkabout.  The benefit of being firm in our convictions is a strength of knowing our way.   But life will toss you into the air and you may not always land on your feet.   Sometimes we land on our heads, where everything is upside down.  In these times, it’s best we soften our view and look at the world through another lens.    And being open to other cultures, religions, and perspectives will be a tremendous asset.   So too will a willingness to stop and try to imagine what the world is life for the other people you encounter.  Because you can be sure, it’s not the same as yours.

So travel the world.  The one outside your country and the outside yourself.  And always employ curiosity as you observe the ways others live.  Take those lessons into your own life and use them to be a better man.

Love, Dad

 

 

 

Dear Amon,

Today I came across this photo of you and was immediately struck by how much you look like me as a child.   And in this photo I see your grandmother Dindy’s crinkled up, twinkling eyes.   Those warm eyes come from  your great-granddaddy Lewis Barber.   As a parent, I find myself looking for the familiar in you.  I do the same with your cousins; John, Julia and George.  I see physical mannerism or features that remind me of members of our family.    And it makes me wonder how you will be like your mother and how you will be like me.   When you were born, we teased that you had all of our finest qualities and none of our flaws.  In reality you get both and your own unique qualities that are 100% Amon.

It easy to try to make you “our” son and place expectations that you will be all the things we want and expect you to be.  And that is a good thing in many ways as the fine qualities and values your mother, Jo and I bring to the plate will undoubtedly help you to become a high caliber human.   Jo calls it the Varsity Team.   And there are basic quality of grace, kindness, forgiveness and charity I hope I will instill in you, as they were given to me.

But in the desire for you to become what we want for you, there is a wide band for your own growth and development.   I oftentimes say that as humans we are allotted 80, 90 or maybe a century of living  – if we are lucky.  And in that period of time God gives each of us  a blank canvas and we then acquire a box of paints, brushes and tools which grows along the way.  The richness of our lives and experiences is what brings us new colors and brushes.   It’s up to us to make our own masterpiece, not others.  We must listen to our own voice.  We must test.  We must experiment and we must fail.   But fail often and quickly, so that we may learn from those mistakes to create a greater work of art that is our life.   And only you can show the world what that is.

Love, Daddy

 

 

Dear Amon,

One of the most beautiful gifts we can give ourselves is the acknowledgment and compassion for our imperfection.   You won’t get it from many others.   Your parents, teachers, friends and society in general will expect much from you.   We do so with what we believe is your best interest at heart.  We will see all the possibilities for who and what you will become and we will get confused in thinking it is our job to make sure you end up there.   The reality is it is YOUR job to make sure you end up wherever you are going.   It will be your own unique path.

I am listening to a Brené Brown TED Talk tonight on Vulnerability.  She says this:

And we perfect, most dangerously, our children. Let me tell you what we think about children. They’re hardwired for struggle when they get here. And when you hold those perfect little babies in your hand,our job is not to say, “Look at her, she’s perfect. My job is just to keep her perfect — make sure she makes the tennis team by fifth grade and Yale by seventh.” That’s not our job. Our job is to look and say,“You know what? You’re imperfect, and you’re wired for struggle, but you are worthy of love and belonging.” That’s our job. Show me a generation of kids raised like that, and we’ll end the problems, I think, that we see today. We pretend that what we do doesn’t have an effect on people. We do that in our personal lives. We do that corporate — whether it’s a bailout, an oil spill … a recall. We pretend like what we’re doing doesn’t have a huge impact on other people. I would say to companies, this is not our first rodeo, people. We just need you to be authentic and real and say … “We’re sorry. We’ll fix it.”

I have been called upon many times in my life to face my imperfection.   I have also been called to love it.  To be vulnerable and be willing to risk everything for the sake of speaking my truth.    Shame needs darkness, and vulnerability needs light.

I honor my imperfections as I do yours.   I am willing to be on that journey with you, my son.

Love, Dad

 

Dear Amon,

Today I want to share with you this  quote from Elisabeth Kulber-Ross:

One of the greatest qualities a man can have is forgiveness.   Forgiveness for others and for himself.

Love, Daddy

Dear Son,

Today I am walking in the wilderness.   I woke up here.   It’s complex and confusing and I feel lost.   I’ve been here before.   I remember that I’ve always found my way out.   But I can’t exactly remember the path right now.  You too will find yourself in the wild one day.  But it does not have to be scary.

What I know about the wilderness is that while you may feel alone, you never really are.   Nature is all around you.   All the natural world is conspiring to keep you connected.   “You are here.   You are not lost”, it seems to be saying.   Sometimes it is here, in the dark, that we can hear our inner voice and our higher power with the most clarity.   It is here that we find our darkest fears and our most beautiful truths.    So much that has been hidden is ready to come forward and the painful reality is we may not be ready to meet these truths.

The wilderness can change landscapes quickly, depending on your view.   It can seem like the dark, brambling forest of talking trees in the Wizard of Oz or it can look like a seamless beige desert, with glaring sun overhead and no oasis in sight.   It’s like a magic kaleidoscope that quickly evolves into another image, depending on how we look through it’s wheel.    It’s never really what it seems.    It’s a mirage.

In the wilderness, there are clues to the exit.   We simply have to look for them.   They usually come from a shared secret or truth from a friend.   An arm reached out for support.  Or in the case of today, the key to a friend’s home, with a message that said “my house is always here for you.”

Poet David Whyte writes about the “temple of my adult aloneness”  in his poem The House of Belonging.   He writes, “This is the temple of my adult aloneness and I belong to that aloneness as I belong to my life.”  But in reality, the place we feel the most alone, is also the place where we can feel the most connected and alive.    In my life I have found the keys also come from inside me as I am willing to be honest, and brave and truthful and explore myself.   I believe we are born knowing ourselves, and all of the human world around us can work to make us forget or deny our truths.   We are told they are wrong.    There is a conformist message we are told over and over and over in order to have us fit into the system.   A system design to keep the masses in line.    But that system is the center of all our unhappiness.   The lies we are told about our gender, our class, our family, our talents, our appearance, our beliefs, our sexual orientation, our desires and wants.    It’s as if these lies are told as a protection from a risk of failure.    It’s meant to toughen us up and reduce our disappointment when we learn that these lies are truths.   But they are not true unless you follow them.   Even when I think I am not doing this to you, dear Amon, I might.   I will try my hardest to keep my fears for you away from you and allow you to courageously find your own path.

Whyte’s poem also says: “This is the bright home in which I live, this is where
I ask my friends to come, this is where I want to love all the things it has taken me so long to learn to love.”

Once, during a retreat at Esalen Institute in Big Sur, Ca, I was asked the question, “How do you know your purpose?  How do you find your true calling?”  I responded, “What are the secrets you are still hiding?   It is here that your greatest gifts will be revealed.  Your truth is tied up with that which you are afraid to share.  Speak your truth and the path to you calling will unfold.”

I am here to help you find your truths, dear boy.

Love, Daddy