Today is my father’s birthday, in my heart that is cause for celebration.  I consider myself blessed not only with my relationship with my father today but also with my childhood relationship with him.

Yes there were a few years when I had the usual anger of a teenager toward his father, back when I thought he was supposed to be perfect and I found out he wasn’t.  Back when I thought that I was right about all my opinions.  Inevitably one day, I don’t know exactly when, I discovered I didn’t know everything, I discovered I was fallible.  That is probably the first phase of adulthood.  Then I started to rediscover my father.

 I was able to accept him as wise yet still human.  I found myself releasing him from my expectations of perfection.  I started to see the value of choices I had not understood and I was able to start appreciating the real gifts he had given me as a child.

More than anyone else in my life I believe my father taught me to value an open and questioning mind.  I learned from him never to take the word of another as ultimate fact.  I learned what a truly scientific mind works like.  It asks questions and even when given an answer it continues to query that answer.  Within every fact imposed by science and society there is a hidden doorway into greater possibilities.  But in order to find that door and open it we must be prepared to leave behind the restrictions imposed by the fact.

I learned by observation and contrast that most people shun the hidden doorways; they marvel at the potential imposed in those anomalies but refuse to get too close.  They like their limited perspectives.

My father introduced me to the paranormal, not as something to be shunned, as the world at large seemed to in those years, but rather as something to be embraced, to be understood, to be looked into for greater understanding.  He never hesitated to bring home controversial information whether it was scientific, social or spiritual.  He was always fascinated by those hidden doorways, and in time he imbued me with that same curiosity.

And always,  the places most important to look at were the places our leaders wanted to deny.  You see one of the things an open mind discovers is the very small number of rules existing with no exceptions.  When I was young this open minded approach was difficult, particularly in light of the fact that I was difficult.  Often my teachers reported that I seemed to follow a different rhythm; I marched to a different drum. 

Again I was able to turn to the example of my father. He was able to walk a different path while fitting in to the rules.  My father also gave me the example of capability.  I don’t ever recall him saying he couldn’t do a thing while I often saw him doing things he had never done before.  When I was still quite young my father got together with several of his colleagues to build a fleet of sailboats that I then grew up racing and playing on through my summers.  This was a couple years after having built the family a camper that our family traveled extensively in.