Gordon Robinson | Who is your real father?

Today is as good a day as any to be reminded that you came from God and will return to God.

There’s too much distraction available, often gleefully seized, regarding fatherhood (no, not that one; don’t be naughty). The latest discussion about mandatory DNA tests at birth is a cruel irrelevance. Also, because we’re all human, it’s likely to cause disruption, division and violence.

From a spiritual perspective, it’s just plain silly. What’s fatherhood? It’s caring, sharing, nurturing and loving. It has nothing to do with presence at conception. About that, here’s some bad news. Every one of us was conceived in a Ménage à Trois (or, colloquially, a “thruple”). Your parents are your biological mother, biological father and God. But God is your real parent.

Don’t believe me? Okay story time. True story: A friend decided to have the wedding on a Number 8 day at a Number 8 time (5.30pm; 5+3=8). As a Numerology student, I warned against it. He scoffed. So I used it as an excuse not to attend although, in truth, I detest all ceremony but especially weddings and funerals. The marriage was difficult and, despite never using contraception, they didn’t conceive. Eventually they divorced. Both re-married (other people) and each now has two beautiful children.

That’s how God works.

More bad news: This means every “father” is wearing God’s “jacket”. Every “mother” has made God’s choice. Fortunately for Joseph, of Biblical fame, DNA testing wasn’t available, so Jesus became Earth’s most famous “jacket” without parental contention. As a result of this Divine “thruple”, we’re all little pieces of God sent here from God’s absolute existence through what we call conception. God’s purpose is that we experience a relative world (where, for example, there can be no light without darkness); gain wisdom through knowledge and experience; then return to God through the passageway we call death. We bring to God the wisdom we acquire here.

Now we know these spiritual truths, we can stop imagining God as we’ve been harangued into doing by misguided religious leaders. God isn’t an old white man sitting at a desk in the sky throwing thunder and lightning at recalcitrant children. God has no gender. God has no pronouns. God is just, well, God.

If you must have a worldly image of God, think of God as an ocean. This can offer a powerful perspective on God’s attributes and our relationship with God. The ocean’s vastness and depth symbolizes God’s infinite and mysterious nature. When the ocean crashes onto rocks droplets leave the ocean as spray, enter the atmosphere for a while then return to the ocean. Other parts of the ocean wash up on shores or beaches and spend more time away before returning as ebb tide. Some arrive by Hurricane or Tsunami flooding and remain longer than others. Some evaporate; become cloud; then return as rain. They return to the ocean taking many direct and indirect routes including flushed down sewers or flowing down gullies and rivers. Every water droplet’s experience after leaving the ocean is different but all return in some form or another at different times after different journeys.

This divine metaphor also explains differing religious beliefs as droplets can return to oceans and leave again (Hindus believe in re-incarnation; Buddhists in rebirth) or can remain in an ocean at eternal peace (Muslims believe in Paradise; Christians in Heaven). As a piece of God you’re also a Creator (as Jesus taught; John14:12). So you’re the creator of your own reality and beliefs. Whatever you believe will be your truth; your fate. Each religion’s faithful followers will experience exactly what they believe after “death”.

It will be their creation.

So, while here, your life can unfold no other way than the way you think it will. Decide NOW what you want your life to look like. Then make it happen. As a water droplet, you have one life to live.

You’ve only got one life to live

so live it in peace live it in truth

live it in love.

Why don’t you live each day

like it’s your last one?

You take control of your emotions

all your doubts and your fears

The thing about being a little Creator (child of God) is that you also create that which you fear. So, don’t begin any thought or expression with “What if…?” It isn’t. It won’t be unless you create it by fearing it. Sure, this life is filled with adversity. Remember God sent us here to experience both sides of relativity which doesn’t exist in God’s absolute world.

Adversity is education. It allows us to acquire knowledge of hardship and experience ways to overcome it. So adversity is another path to wisdom. No matter the adversity remember you’re here to face it. You’re alive. So stay positive and be prepared to adjust as adversity challenges you. Don’t be afraid. Your fear will only serve to feed adversity’s deepest need. Look adversity directly in the eye. Never back down. You’ll find adversity shrivels up and disappears under your direct gaze.

And just laugh

at the world

and all its sadness

and replace joy

for those salty bitter tears

‘cause you’ve got one life to live

so give it your all;

give it a lot;

give it your best shot.

God must be disappointed in traditional Christian Churches for teaching us to hate other beliefs. Pastor will tell you that other religions are evil. This is hate speech. The Crusades (started in 1095) were a series of religious wars initiated by Papacies. They were designed to capture Muslim controlled lands which the Roman Catholic Church insisted were Holy Land (Jerusalem and surrounding territories) belonging to that Church. Holy land belonging? How’s THAT for an oxymoron?

Unspeakable atrocities were committed in the name of a Christian God whose human representative taught, over 1,000 years before, that we should love each other. Ironically, although the Church was initially successful, the Holy Land was lost by 1291 and is currently occupied by warring religious factions. None is the Roman Catholic Church but religious atrocities, including ethnic cleansing, continue.

This isn’t God’s plan. This isn’t God’s work. God gave God’s children Free Will. We’ve abused it, as we’re entitled to do, to create the opposite of love leading to chaos, mayhem and hatred. But you’ll make the change. You’ll always choose love. You’ll never embrace hate. Hatred consumes your being and destroys your inner peace. Anything done out of love is divine and will allow you to experience the full glory of Who You Really Are (God’s child) and who you can be.

And then you greet every day

with a little love in your heart.

You go and do all the things you desire

all the things you dream of

because today is the beginning

of a brand new life.

You have to fail sometimes

in order for you to succeed

In 1977, iconic soul singer Lou Rawls released One Life to Live on the aptly named album “When you hear Lou you’ve heard it all”. Lou’s smooth baritone dominated during the late 1970s/80s but his career started in the early 1950s when he sang with Sam Cooke in a gospel group The Teenage Kings of Harmony. By 1959 he was recording solo. His impact was monumental.

“Chairman of the Board”, vocalist and performing legend, Frank Sinatra, once said Lou had “the classiest singing and silkiest chops in the singing game”. Lou Rawls remains one of the Old Ball and Chain’s favourites.

Louis Allen Rawls was born on a Number One day (December 1, 1933) so destined, according to Numerology, to reach the top of his chosen profession. He died of lung cancer on January 6, 2006, but his music lives on forever. He wasn’t just a singer. For 25 years, Lou Rawls quietly did charity work for United Negro College Fund. Guion Bluford, the first African-American astronaut, brought Lou Rawls’ 1983 album When the Night Comes (included Wind beneath My Wings) into space with him.

Once we understand we’re all from the same father we’ll love each other as brothers and sisters. We’ll learn to ignore illusion of worldly difference. If you need any further encouragement visit your nearest cemetery. Read the tombstones. You’ll quickly recognize that, whether in life residents were rich or poor; tall or short; fat or thin; ugly or beautiful; they’re all the same now.

Lou Rawls believed in love. So should you. God, your real father, is an ocean of love. Give God a happy Fathers’ Day. Jump right in. The water’s fine!

Peace and Love.

Gordon Robinson is an attorney-at-law. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com