Orbit.
No man is an island, Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent, A part of the main…
Any man’s death diminishes me, Because I am involved in mankind…
~ John Donne
Happy Father’s Day …and Happy Solstice too. What do the longest day and our most primal relationship have in common?
The 16th-century English poet, scholar, and minister John Donne reminds us in a snatch of poetry above of our intrinsic connection to the entire human family. Across all lines of race, gender, language, time, and identity, we are organically and spiritually conjoined. You could say that our lives orbit one another.
Just as planets orbit the sun and moons orbit planets, so we exist in symbiotic relationship with a host of other forces of nature and forces of personality. In one real sense, we exist in relationship with all forces of nature and personality—all the humans we will never meet, all the places we will never visit, all the cosmic activity we will never perceive. Truly, we belong to the divine thread woven through all time and dimension! How’s that for a brain-bender?
Closer to home, each of us has a father, and each of us bears a very specific and unique orbit around this father, whether dead or alive, intimate or estranged, known or unknown. A father (and a mother too, but today is about fathers) sets a defining mark upon a child. Generally, fathers are our first association with God—the first seemingly all-powerful force in our world—so the effects are profoundly formative… for both good and ill. And of course, we get both. Those of us who are fathers ourselves give both, often to our chagrin.
An orbit is a great metaphor because it described an established relationship, a social contract, a set of habits and beliefs and assumptions that set the gravitational arc of our interactions. At worst, the father-orbit breaks down, something falls into the atmosphere and burns. At best, the father-orbit adjusts, recalibrates, and strengthens over time for the health and delight of both. The relationship itself is a living thing with the potential to keep growing as long as both parties are alive… and perhaps even after.
Of the many things we could say about the father-child relationship, this is the one that strikes me with most force today: No matter how many years you have known one another, there are large portions of one another’s souls that remain undiscovered and unknown. Sometimes it’s difficult to access those regions of soul, sometimes we’re not sure if we want to access those regions of one another, and often we simply get distracted by the consuming nature of life and neglect to try.
Usually, it’s worth trying.
finding our way home
I don’t know if planetary relationships are challenging, but I know that most human relationships have their challenges. Opportunities for injury and misunderstanding are plentiful… as are opportunities for vulnerability, forgiveness, and healing. Today, and for all our days, let’s lean toward redemption. We can’t fix everything, but we won’t know what’s possible until we try.
takeaway
Work on your Orbit.