Oxygen
by: Mary Oliver
Everything needs it: bone, muscles, and even,
while it calls the earth its home, the soul.
So the merciful, noisy machine
stands in our house working away in its
lung-like voice. I hear it as I kneel
before the fire, stirring with a
stick of iron, letting the logs
lie more loosely. You, in the upstairs room,
are in your usual position, leaning on your
right shoulder which aches
all day. You are breathing
patiently; it is a
beautiful sound. It is
your life, which is so close
to my own that I would not know
where to drop the knife of
separation. And what does this have to do
with love, except
everything? Now the fire rises
and offers a dozen, singing, deep-red
roses of flame. Then it settles
to quietude, or maybe gratitude, as it feeds
as we all do, as we must, upon the invisible gift:
our purest, sweet necessity: the air.
Everything on this planet needs oxygen in some way. It's the element that binds us all together, fueling life and love and fire and finches. In the time I have typed these words, I have taken exactly 12 breaths. Twelve bites of oxygen to keep this machine of lungs and blood and muscles and bones running.
Of course, as Oliver points out, the soul (if you believe in souls) doesn't require oxygen to continue to exist. But, for the time that the soul is tied to this world, it uses the body as its Millennium Falcon, its Enterprise. And oxygen is the coaxium or dilithium crystals (depending on your sci fi universe of choice) that powers the body.
I've been thinking a lot about the soul today, for some reason. Today is Father's Day in the United States, 24 hours set aside to honor fathers and father figures. I attended two church services this morning, and the sermons were all about Christ sending his disciples out into the world to spread the good news. In Biblical terms, it's called the Great Commission. Gathering souls for God.
My dad forced me to go to church when I was young. It wasn't a choice. We were expected to attend Mass every weekend. (For the most part, I followed this edict, except for a couple years of rebellion in my late teens, when I attended the Church of Burger King every Sunday, instead.) For a long time, as well, my father forced my siblings and me to recite the rosary after dinner. After the dishes were cleared off the table and the food put away, we all got on our knees and prayed.
In a way, I suppose, my dad was doing his part for the Great Commission. Teaching my siblings and me how to live good, devout lives. Of course, as children are wont to do, we all followed our own paths. None of us have turned our backs on God, but none of us get down on our knees every day to recite the rosary, either.
Through my whole life, the lessons I learned from my parents have guided my actions as an adult and husband and father. I am the person I am today because I was raised by two loving individuals. I might not have liked all of my father's beliefs or ideas, but I always knew that I was loved. That was the oxygen of my family.
I have tried to be the oxygen for my kids. My daughter taught me how to be a father. My son taught me how to be a father unconditionally, no matter what. You see, I spent a lot of time as a teenager and young adult wondering if my dad really even liked me because I was so different from all of my brothers and sisters. And I voted for Michael Dukakis in my first U. S. presidential election.
I think that both my kids know that I love them without question. That I'm proud of the young people they've become. My job as their dad is to keep that fire burning brightly for the rest of my life. That is a child's sweetest necessity. That is a father's Great Commission--to be that oxygen.
Saint Marty has a poem for this Father's Day:
by: Martin Achatz
When I read to my son, he runs
from me, as if I’m a hungry lion,
he, a well-fed Christian condemned
by Nero. I have never played with green
soldiers, refuse to buy toy guns or darts,
still have my daughter’s old dolls
in the toy chest. My son obsesses over
cars, matchbox tractors, helicopters tiny
as frogs. I don’t know where he learned
this hunger, if it somehow mutated
from some Neanderthal gene, hairy,
full of mammoth hunts, stone wheels.
He sits on the floor, growls, makes sounds
of rusty mufflers, truck engines stuck
in pools of swamp mud. I listen,
watch him shove cars across hardwood,
think of my father, the plumber, hunter,
car guy, in the front row for Our Town
when I was in high school. He watched me
the way he watches the Super Bowl
every year, as if his life depends on
his team bringing home the Vince Lombardi
Trophy. I took my bow, looked at my father,
standing, clapping, maybe understanding
Thornton Wilder’s words about how
we all go through life, ignorant of
toast mothers make for breakfast,
grass fathers mow on summer nights,
our daily acts of devotion, sacrifices
we make without even thinking.
I will sit in stadium bleachers
if my son joins the football team.
I will buy popcorn, cheer, stomp.
I will do this for him, not quite
comprehending the rules of his game,
the mechanics of toy cars pushed
straight through the walls of my heart.
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