My God! Father, how are the mighty fallen? You and I, Gods of men, men of stone. How versatile we have become? We are an immortal fiction, on a rock.

Are you not tired? I am weary of the sick cycle of fear and betrayal.  Sick of our suckling prophets. Biled teats unloving fathers make, from babies born with gripe. And the woes of unloved wives will wean their vengeance, graft their sins on sons with lies.

In the beginning, which word or deed set in motion this habit of fathers warring with sons? Where is the root of our division? Will these disputes, whose original cause is lost in the rolling momentum of vengeance, never end? We forget why we are angry. We only know that anger gives purpose to our absurd existence.

If we could only sit and talk. Would we not find a New World at such a table? We are in need of a New World Father.

I will share with you a dream I had. I walked amongst my children mourning beside my coffin. Though they did not speak  I heard the cry of their hearts which whispered as one voice:

Our Father, hollow is thy name. Thy kingdom’s come as your will is done on earth and heaven. We shall not trespass on you if you do not trespass on us. Lead us not, though temptation lures you to evil. This here’s no longer your kingdom. Not now, or ever. Amen

A child learns to walk twice in the world. The first time guided by parents, the second time guided by their loss.

Father, I adored you. The degree of a man’s anger is a measurement of the love he feels he has lost. And what is this anger? It is the anguish of rejection, uttered. It is me directing your gaze back to me. It is me helpless, hopeless and lost navigating myself away from the vortex of confusion which threatens to swallow me. It is all that is left of our love, and as a remnant of that which I held so dear, I hold onto it with all my strength. It is not your love, but it is better than nothing. It is a slow burning fire seeking new air and dead kings must have heirs. Yours is the burden of heaviness you now must heave, a rock for a heart.

The Burghers of Calais by Auguste Rodin, Paris, 1889.