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Dear RLP,

I have been reading your blog for about the last 9 months and look forward to it. But I have to tell you, one of your recent pieces affected me down to my heart. It is called, "Big Numbers and Little Girls."

You see, this has always been my dream with my dad, that he would have loved me this much, in a proper way. You say that a child will always matter, but I have never felt that, at least not towards myself. I haven't felt very important, or that it mattered that I was here on this planet.

I have always wondered why I wasn't protected from my dad and why all this happened to me. Let me tell you, I know what it feels like to live in fear and without real love. It takes something precious away from you. You will never be a little girl like that again. You are destroyed.

It's funny, but I don't blame God for my dad. And I have such a deep appreciation for people who love children and care for them in the way that they should.

It's just that I wish so much that I could have had that.

So, thank you for writing and for your blog.

Susan

*************

Dear Susan,

I get a fair amount of email from sad, grown-up little girls who missed out on what should have been their birthright. The love of a daughter for her father is such a delicate and sacred thing, though it is also very strong and durable. Fathers can make a lot of mistakes and be forgiven. Children love to forgive if you just ask them.

But it sounds like what your father did was beyond neglect or simply not being very present in your life. It sounds like he hurt you terribly, and that is an evil so dark that it takes my breath away. I don't know what this will mean so many years later and from so far away, but I'm sorry this happened to you. So sorry. You deserved better.

I don't know why some fathers cannot see that the child clinging to their legs is the most precious gift on earth and the most sacred trust. Some sell that relationship for a bowl of stew, to use a biblical image. Or worse, they destroy it outright.

Our human freedom is certainly a blessed and a terrible thing.

I hope you have found people in your life to love you. Something about the quiet, vulnerable way you expressed yourself makes me think that you have. I do hope so.

What I'm about to say borders on being a little hokey. If it is, just understand that I meant well and didn't know any other way to say it.

I know you're not a little girl anymore, except in your heart where that little girl will always live, though she may be hard to find. If I could travel back in time and find you, I want you to know that it would be an honor to be your father.

Love,

rlp

Used with permission. The name and some wording was changed.

My oldest daughter doesn't believe in God anymore, so she says. She told me this recently at Starbucks.

Starbucks is the place we go to talk. The house is the place where we do the daddy/daughter thing. I enforce tough boundaries, which is my job, and she pushes hard against them, which is hers. Sometimes we get into passionate arguments about this, which can be a strain. But when I take her to Starbucks, it's like we become two different people. We sit down and she starts talking. She talks to me about everything at Starbucks.

So I like taking her to Starbucks, as you can imagine. It's our thing and we both know it. I'll say, “Let's go to Starbucks,” and she'll give me the thumbs up. It means “Let's talk.”

We were sitting there sipping our hot drinks recently and I said, “So tell me how you and God are doing these days.”

She got a sad look in her eyes before she spoke. She never hesitated, apparently never even considered hiding this from me. She put a mock-frown on her face, which is a way of indicating that you are serious about what you are going to say. Then she shook her head slowly back and forth in the way people do when they want you to know they regret having to say something, but they must.

“Don't believe in him. I want to. I really wish I did. I've tried to believe in him, but I just don't.”

I'd say about a hundred thoughts rushed into my head in that instant. But the thing that pushed its way to the surface was a warning thought. “Be very careful with her. Listen to her. Don't speak.”

How and what we humans think about God is usually enmeshed with what is going on in our lives at any particular time. God language is deeply rooted in our psyche and perhaps our collective unconscious, if you believe in that sort of thing. I'm not sure I do, but it certainly seems to explain a lot. That's why even those who do not believe in a deity might still yell, “Jesus Christ!” or “Oh my God!” in a moment of anger, passion, or fear. The language of God is deep and old and practically inescapable for most people.

When someone is giving you their theology, their God words, you should listen hard and be very gentle. The time to deliver your God words is when you are asked.

You see, I've taken this journey that she is beginning. This God stuff is my specialty, you might say. Like if a brick layer's son was talking about building his first wall. And if I'm not careful, I'll rush in with my answers and my story. If I'm not careful I will overwhelm her with my own journey.

And this is her journey. I will willingly and passionately share my own journey with her, when the time is right. God help me with the timing on this. She needs enough of me and not too much.

So she talked and talked and talked. She cried and so did I. As I listened, two things were very interesting to me.

First, it's her inability to feel God's presence that is making it hard for her to believe. She said, “I don't really care that I can't see God. I've already figured out that our senses mislead us. There are a lot of real things in the universe that we cannot see or touch or understand. I don't really need to see or touch God to think that God might exist. But I don't feel God inside. Things don't seem real to me unless I can feel them.”

I made a mental note to follow up on that, because I don't really understand it. It sounds like her mother. I, on the other hand, coming out of a lot of experiences with emotional religion, don't trust my feelings. I always needed to understand the idea of God. That's what I was always looking for in the old days.

Second, she loves church. She said that she really likes our church and certainly doesn't want to stop coming. She said she likes my sermons and that they really make her think.

I started crying again when she said that. Just a little. Watery eyes.

And so she will continue to be active in our church. She's keeping her eyes and her heart open. She would like very much to believe in God and hopes that God might make himself or herself feel real to her someday. Maybe very soon.

I was so happy to hear that she likes church. It seems to me that she stands in a place that is exactly the opposite of many people in our culture. I meet people all the time who believe in the existence of God, but who are so wounded by their experiences with church that they drop out of the practice of Christianity because they see nothing but hurtful and abusive behavior in it.

This is my daughter, my baby girl, who is growing up and thinking and experiencing and searching. This is my daughter who is passionate and engaged and searching. This is my daughter.

And my daughter doesn't believe in God.

She sat in my lap and let me read baby bible stories to her when she was very little. She sat on the blanket with the children of our church when she was a child. She gave her life to Christ in Vacation Bible School one year. She has grown up in the company of gentle people of faith.

My daughter doesn't believe in God right now. Why do I feel so happy?

Because she wasn't afraid to tell me.

Because the roots of faith that we have given her were born of a gentle and authentic Christianity. I trust that she will find her way in time, and further, that all of this will be her journey and her story. It will all be good.

Because I love her mind and her passion. You should see her. She talks about God more now that she doesn't believe in God than ever before. She goes around her high school asking people what they think about God. She told me that if a boy can't tell her what he thinks about God, she's not interested in him. She's looking for a boy who is a deep thinker.

And because she and I have Starbucks and we talk to each other. How she honors me with this. Can she possibly know what that means to me, that she wants to talk to her father?

I don't suppose she will until the day that she sits with a son or daughter of her own and asks, “So how are you and God doing these days?”

rlp

My daughter, who is sixteen, gave me permission to write about this.

I remember when I was 27 and our first daughter was learning to walk. I told an older friend how hard it was to watch her fall and hurt herself. He said, "Just wait until she comes home from school with a broken heart."

In that moment I tried to imagine my little girl as a teen-ager, sobbing in my arms because she thought she was ugly, or because she was lonely, or because someone had been cruel and wounded her heart. I remember that I could just barely imagine the sadness, and it took my breath away.

These days I live with that kind of pain all the time.

The amount of love and care my wife and I have invested in these three little hearts is unthinkable. We've raised them so gently, nurturing their self-esteem, walking carefully with them through every stage of life. And now that two of them are in secondary schools, we must turn them over to the savages. Middle school is Lord of the Flies. High school is a little better, but still brutal.

Last year Shelby was selected by the girls in her class for special torment and pain. My little Shelby whose every look and mannerism is known and loved by me. Why Shelby? She's socially gifted and able to relate well to her peers. But she was the new girl in school and she was chosen. It was like watching the hyenas cut one gazelle out from the herd and take her down.

Some days before school she would almost throw up from fear. I had to take her to school and let her fight the battle herself. You can't let your children die, so there are times to step in. But mostly they have to get through these things on their own. We met with teachers and counselors to help, but for the most part she had to deal with it herself.

Watching it was so painful. My little sweetie. How can anyone want to hurt her?

This year has been better. She's established herself with the kids in her school and has friends. Well, she thought she had friends. Yesterday one of the girls in her group told her that they had talked about it and decided that they weren't going to be Shelby's friends anymore. She was strong at school but fell apart at home. She has learned not to let them see you sweat.

I gave her a hug and tried to be strong too. Under my breath I cursed. "Dammit! We did this last year, and I don't want to do it again."

But this is the way it is. This is what it means to be a parent. You cannot save your children from pain. If you try, you will only bring a different kind of pain to them. They must grow, and they must walk, and they must go out into the world and take their licks.

And you must sit at home and imagine what is happening. You must root for them, cry with them, and feel what they feel. This is the way of parents. No one can tell you this ahead of time. You can't know it until you know it.

And of course I know that there are much worse things out there for children. Shelby will be fine. She has marvelous ego strength, and this season of her life is just one of many.

But knowing that there is worse pain doesn't make present pain hurt any less.

rlp

What children bring to the table is pure love, like a fifty pound nugget of gold a yokel hefts onto the bar in full view of everyone in the saloon.

One-by-one we leave the gambling tables, the liquor, and the player piano to sidle up to the stranger with the pretty rock. In that instant, love comes over us like the rush of a mighty wind, filling the room and touching us as if with tongues of fire. The irresistible pull of our desire sucks the air from our lungs and leaves us weak, panting, and forever addicted.

The yokel says, “This is love. Do you understand now?”

And your heart says, “Yes!” But this is no ordinary yes. This is the yes of your bones, the ontological yes of your being, the yes that existed before all time. This is what you were made for and only now do you see it. You cry out, and your body shakes, and you fall to your knees in submission. This is the world's most powerful drug, the one that all others can only imitate. Once you have tasted it you will pay any price for more, or wander the earth to honor even the memory of it.

This is what children bring to the table. They dance into the room dragging the greatest power in the universe behind them like a toy on a string. All of your petty sophistications are swept aside, and when they are gone you do not remember the substance of them or how they once held power over you. There is no going back. Here you stand; you can do no other.

You know you have handed over the keys to your kingdom, but the transaction is complete. It happened in an instant; it happened before you could draw a breath. And now the power to break your heart lies out of your control and in the hands of a child.

And they will hurt you, children will. They will take everything you have and give you only sips of what you desire. And then they will harden in time and become more and more like you. They will become guarded, and they will lose love. Then they will leave you to seek it in distant lands. When they leave, you are forever changed, forever hungry, forever seeking. You are deeper, richer, more capable, more able to love.

And if there is someone who shared this love with you, and if the two of you worked hard to stay connected through the firestorm and through the grief, and if both of you were equally determined not to lose each other in those long years, then one day you will turn to your beloved, lay your hand on her aging cheek, and discover that love has not left you after all.

And everything you gave for love will be returned to you. And you will become children for each other, dancing again in the Garden of Eden. You will see with new eyes. You will know Wisdom. You will bless the world.

And it is said that you will walk together in the land which the Lord has given you until it is time.

rlp

My middle daughter, Shelby, has always been a wonderfully quirky child. She was a colicy baby, but she would stop crying if someone turned on a vacuum cleaner. In those days we just left the vacuum cleaner running all the time. It was like white noise on heroin. Visitors would stare and sometimes point at the vacuum cleaner running in the corner. I lost the ability to hear it and would forget that it was on. The silence that fell over the room when I shut it off was deafening.

At age two she started eating lemons at restaurants. She would stretch out her arm toward your iced tea, opening and closing her hand until you gave her your lemon wedge. Then, as friends and family watched in amazement, she would devour it rind and all with scarcely a pucker.

At age four she lived in a dream world of her own making. She would gather all of her beloved toy animals and Disney characters into her room and close the door. If we tried to peek inside she would politely but firmly ask us to leave.

At age five she became obsessed with death and dying. It was like living with a miniature Woody Allen. She begged to be taken to cemeteries where we would walk around and read headstones together. She became concerned that she might end up as a mummy and be put on display in a museum. She wondered if a meteor might end life on earth the way it did long ago in the days of the dinosaurs.

At age six all of her fears caught up with her and her life began to unravel. She was afraid of bridges, both to walk under them and to drive over them. She was afraid of heights, death, illness, rides at amusement parks, disease, pestilence, plagues, car crashes, swings, and that her father would be arrested for watering the lawn on the wrong day during a drought. A play therapist helped settle her down just before Jeanene and I lost our minds.

When she was eight I asked her what she wanted for her birthday. She thought for a moment and then said she wanted her very own lemon tree. She said she didn't know any kids who had their own fruit trees, and anyway she had always loved lemons. It was an odd request but one easily granted. Her lemon tree lives in a pot on our back porch even now.

At ten we lived through a nightmare. We moved, and she had to go to a new school. A gang of girls in her class decided that Shelby was weird and chose her to be the object of their ridicule. She felt ill many mornings and wanted to stay home. Seeing her sad but brave face when I dropped her off at school broke my heart over and over. But she was strong, and she told me that she was going to be herself no matter what anyone said. By the end of the year, she won over some enemies and managed to make a place for herself in the treacherous and slippery world of 5th grade society.

And now she is twelve. In November she came to me and told me what she wanted for Christmas.

“I want a black leather jacket, only it doesn't have to be real leather or anything. Fake is fine. Nothing expensive. I want to hang stuff from the inside of the jacket and sell it in the halls of school, like they do on TV. I think that's cool. I want to go up to a kid and say, ?Hey Mike...can I call you Mike? Mike, do you LIKE candy?' And then I'll open my jacket and have all this candy hanging in there.”

Somehow this child keeps finding ways to surprise me. Actually, I was pleased that she was working out the dialogue in her mind ahead of time. I may have a budding writer here.

Her older sister found a fake leather jacket in a used store, sewed strips of Velcro inside it, and gave it to her for Christmas, receiving a thrilled hug in return. She gave Shelby advice on being discreet and avoiding teachers in the halls. I was worried that she might get expelled, but I decided that I didn't care. It's worth it, if only so she will have this story to tell for the rest of her life.

And so it came to pass that when the kids returned to school after Christmas break, Shelby was running her own black market candy store out of her jacket.

She was a smash hit at school, so I hear. Everyone was talking about the girl in the black jacket who sells candy in between classes. The first day she gave most of the candy away, bringing home ten cents. The second day she made a $1.50, but lost it while changing in the locker room. But it was never about the money. It was the idea of it that thrilled Shelby, like the idea of having your own lemon tree. And she managed to make a place for herself in the scary world of Middle School. Even some of the cool kids gave her that nod that says, “You're okay.” A person can build a Middle School reputation for themselves having pulled off something like this just once.

Shelby is entering the dark tunnel of adolescence. And she is asking all the questions that everyone asks when they get sucked into the darkness of this season of life.

“Who am I?”
“Where do I fit in?”
“Am I okay the way I am?”

Sadly, the answers being traded inside the tunnel are not always the best ones. A lot of good kids get chewed up in there. Some never find good answers and spend their whole lives searching.

I've been through the tunnel experience with the first sister, and I will go through it again with the third. There isn't much I can do but hug her and be waiting when she emerges in a few years, blinking in the bright sunshine.

And I WILL be waiting for you, Shelby. You have always been my string of pearls, and I will be there when you come out and resume your love affair with lemon trees and graveyards. And when you are ready to hear me, I have the answer to your questions. I know the answer because I have journeyed to the secret places of the world and found wisdom.

Here is the answer you seek:

You have always been okay, even from the beginning.

So VERY okay.

rlp

He said I was his string of pearls...

How is it possible that we have arrived at this final moment? For years we lived with hangaburs, peasghetti, arts and crabs, aminals, and other delightful, childish mispronunciations. Each of these had its day of glory and then passed away in its time. Now we are down to just one – "Ponybail Tand."

Lillian's hair is too short to ever need a ponytail band, but sometimes she wants one when she is playing one of her complex games with her stuffed animals and her little toy horses. She will burst out of her room, impatiently asking if anyone has a ponybail tand. There's something about this that reminds me of Moe Szyslak on the Simpsons, clutching the phone and desperately shouting to his bar patrons, “Is there an Al Caholic here?” while everyone laughs.

The older girls snicker behind their fingers and hand one over. She doesn't notice the giggling because her mind is still wrapped up in the drama unfolding back in her room. Love Monkey is having tea with the Big Horse, only the horse needs her tail wrapped up with a ponybail tand because it's a fancy affair and even the Valentine Doggy has been invited.

The two older sisters have been warned, on pain of immediate death, never to say it correctly in her presence. I'm afraid if she ever hears “Ponytail band,” the spell will be broken and the whole family will be forced to board the ship that is even now ready to set sail upon the turbulent waters of girlish adolescence. My oldest boarded this ship a few years ago, and I will allow that she seems to be doing fine. The middle one finally released her white-knuckle grip on the railing and went aboard, though I notice with pleasure that she still has her blankie tucked under her arm.

Little Lillian holds our last lifeline, and the name of that blessed tether is “Ponybail Tand.”

Gracious and loving Heavenly Father, please do not send me to Nineveh today. I'll gladly go tomorrow, or better yet, some unspecified day in the future, but not today. I will not get on the boat bound for Tarshish, but neither am I ready to leave these shores. I plan to do your bidding, eventually, but if you try to drag me onto this ship, I will make a terrible scene. I will shout and cry aloud. My fingernails will rip ugly furrows into the dock.

Today, just for today, let your servant hear again those blessed words that I love. Let me hear her say, “Ponybail Tand” just one more time. I have left ponytail bands lying in strange places in her room. I even put one around her toe one night when she was asleep in hopes that she would wake up the next morning and say, “Hey, who put this ponybail tand here?”

But she is silent. In the morning, she removed the ponytail band from her toe with a puzzled look but said nothing. I'm afraid she is suspicious. I'm afraid she has seen the older girls giggling after all and knows there is something wrong with the way she says it. The whistle is blowing and they are announcing the final boarding call. I am holding tight to my last lifeline, but I feel it growing slack in my hands.

     For everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.
     A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted.
     A time to weep, and a time to laugh, a time to mourn, and a time to dance.
     A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain.
     A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away.
                                                               Ecclesiastes

For everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven. These things I have known since I was a young man in the faith. But somehow I am never ready.

rlp

The Byrds didn't write that? 

What the heck are Nineveh and Tarshish? 

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night
   Sailed off in a wooden shoe---
Sailed on a river of crystal light,
   Into a sea of dew.
"Where are you going, and what do you wish?"
   The old moon asked the three.
"We have come to fish for the herring fish
   That live in this beautiful sea;

There was a time, long ago, when I had my own little bed beneath a window that overlooked a desert in the westward mountain town of El Paso. In the evening, when the shadows grew long and the heat gave way to the chill of the desert night, the coyotes would sing their lonely songs, and I would wait for sleep.

And on those nights I would gaze with love and painful longing upon a picture book with the very odd title of "Wynken, Blynken, and Nod."

I could not read, so I feasted on the enticing illustrations while the memory of my mother's soft voice caused the words to be born again in my heart. There were three little cherubic, tow-headed boys wearing pastel one-piece pajamas. One of the boys had lost a button, which caused half of his flap to sag and revealed a glimpse of his bottom. Their names were Wynken, Blynken, and Nod. They had paper hats and fishing poles, and they set sail in a tiny wooden shoe, hoping to find all the wonderful and dreamy things that beckon to us from just beyond.

Their little boat rocked and nodded in a twilight sea of stars and clouds and twinkling nets. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, and I began to long for something that I could not name or understand.

As I look back on it, it seems that my heart was made for Wynken, Blynken, and Nod. My soul said "yes" to them and to their journey. I wanted to be on that little boat, sailing those mysterious waters in search of something wonderful and sweet that lives over the horizon and out of our reach. I felt in my heart that there must be a reality beyond us where little boys may sail away in wooden boats and be safely returned if they fall asleep on the way.

Gazing at my book as the darkness fell outside my window, I would sate myself on those images and finally drift off to sleep, my soul full of longing and my heart adrift in a sea of joy with no shoreline and no name. It was like floating in an ocean of little boy worship.

Some years passed, and I grew too old for picture books and childish things. In time I forgot about the little boys in their wooden shoe boat. I never understood what I was looking for, but the mark of that sweet desire would always live in my heart.

I grew to be a man and had children of my own. When my first daughter was three I lay down in bed with her one night to help her go to sleep. One side of her twin bed was against the wall, and I lay on the other side facing out, making a little space for her in between that was almost like a little boat, if you think about it. She fidgeted and kicked and talked to me for a few minutes, and then something magical happened.

She forgot I was there and lost herself in pure play while I faded away like the bedroom furniture in "Where the Wild Things Are." She talked and played with "Sungy," her favorite stuffed bear. I listened, delighted and amazed. She rolled back and forth, bumping into me and sometimes leaning against my body while my eyes closed with delight. I have always loved the feeling of my children's bodies pressed against mine. I love to feel their squirming. A leg flopped over my hip for a moment, and a little hand played in my hair which had become a forest at the top of a mountain. Tiny fingers picked at my shirt and sneaked into one of my pockets looking for candy.

I was treated to the subconscious, slumgullion speech that is common to children who are lost in the absolute present moment of play.

"Do you want to buy an O, round and sweet? No, I don't, because you shouldn't say that. The dolphins are jumping and Sungy says that his mommy doesn't let him say that or buy Os because they're very scary."

Cartoon sound bites and bits of commercials. Little moments from her day. Fears and joys remembered. Scat singing. Noises that amuse. This is your little girl. Listen, for this is how her mind works. Keep silent and know her deepest desires. Strolling through the interior castle of her mind was a most delightful and relaxing pleasure.

Sailing away at bedtime became something I looked forward to. It always happened in the same way. I would listen to her talk and feel her body moving in the bed behind me. In time her voice would grow soft and her breathing would become regular. The squirming would slow and then cease. If I was lucky, the little heel thrown over my hip would grow heavy and not be taken away. She would drift off to sleep, and sometimes I would too, knowing real peace and contentment, if only for that hour.

I have sailed the sleepy-time seas with three daughters now, my own little Wynken, Blynken, and Nod. There were times when more than one of them wanted me to come and see them off to sleep. In those days I thought this journey would last forever. But now my youngest is seven, and she doesn't play with toys in bed anymore. Last night I lay beside her as she read a "Junie B. Jones" book. I asked her to read aloud so that I could hear her voice, but she said, "Dad, I mostly just read silently now."

Oh.

I see.

The last of the three sisters has come of age and put away these childish things. No more sailing away at night on a sea of silly words and playtime. She would rather get a kiss and a hug and be left alone to enjoy her book.

I understand.

It's okay. It really is. One day I may sail the seas of dreamland with a grandchild. One never knows. In the meantime, I take comfort in knowing that I have finally named the thing I longed for so long ago in my bed beneath the window.

It was the journey. It was the journey itself that stirred my heart. It was the boat and the boys and the stars and the sea. It was everything found and felt along the way.

It was always the journey.
It will always be the journey.
I know nothing but the journey.

Whatever calls to us from beyond the horizon of our hearts is hidden for now. There are hints about its nature and stories about its ways in the old books, but what lies beyond the sea remains a mystery. It is the journey that we long for and only the journey that we may know.

Why we love to sail toward something that can never be found is one of life's great mysteries. It's the way we are made, I believe, and I take comfort in that.

Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes,
   And Nod is a little head,
And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies
   Is a wee one's trundle-bed.
So shut your eyes while mother sings
   Of wonderful sights that be,
And you shall see the beautiful things
   As you rock in the misty sea,
Where the old shoe rocked the fishermen three:
       Wynken,
          Blynken,
             And Nod.

rlp

Click here to read the poem "Wynken, Blynken, and Nod."
Click here to read about "Where the Wild Things Are."