When I was growing up if anyone had asked me who was the most influential person in my life, I would have said my mother. She was a force unto herself, and ruled our house and our daily lives as a benign dictator. My parents have both been gone now for well over forty years and as I have become older I realize that the person who had the most influence in my life was the quiet, unassuming man who was my father.
One of my earliest memories of him are of a skinny man dressed in what I now know were army fatigues, wearing a jacket with multiple pockets. He wore a broad brimmed hat, carried an umbrella and a walking stick. The jacket pockets were full of all sorts of interesting things, Swiss army knife, bottles and small jars, and all sorts of other fascinating odds and ends. We are in a forest somewhere, ambulating along, turning over logs and poking in piles of forest debris. My favorite part was opening up the umbrella, turning it upside down and banging on the trees above with the walking stick. If you were really lucky some really cool insects would fall into the umbrella to be captured and put in one of the many jars kept in those voluminous pockets. If you were having a really good “bugging” day, you would find interesting bugs in the rotting wood and debris on the forest floor. My father was an entomologist, naturalist and environmentalist by avocation.
My father was also a Boy Scout leader for over 25 years in an inner city troop, the courts sent him “troubled teenagers” to be part of his scout troop. He won them over by his gentleness, but probably more through the camping trips. When you camped with my father, you didn’t have pop-up tents or any conveniences. He had a big old army tent, with no floor. The tent was pitched on the bare earth, a trench dug around the perimeter of the tent, so if it rained you wouldn’t be sleeping on wet ground. Dinner was cooked over an open flame, and when you were ready to leave the campsite, you policed the grounds to ensure that not one piece of garbage was left. When the camping trip was finished, the campsite was clean. You removed what you brought in. Nature was to be respected at all times, never abused.
I can’t say that I look at the world with the same wonder and joy my father did, but I can say that he taught me there is so much more in this world than what is obvious. I know that if find a rotting piece of wood on the ground and turn it over or poke at it a bit that all sorts of astonishing little creatures are in the wood and under it, and maybe that’s what its all about. Looking at the world a little closer, with respect and with a bit more awe. I believe that my father found God in the forests he spent so much time in. In many ways I have missed so much in this beautiful world over the last 30 years by not having my father around reminding me of what’s important. If my father walked back into my life right now, I would probably ask him if we could just walk in the woods, banging on trees, looking for bugs and just “spend the afternoon”. Annie Dillard tells us that the universe was not “made in jest but in solemn incomprehensible earnest. By a power that is unfathomably secret and holy. There is nothing to be done about it but ignore it, or see.” My father like Annie Dillard chose to see.
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