Lunch with my Dad

Glimmers March 13, 2021

Dear Friends,             

I’ve started a new “practice.” I’m having lunch with my dad.

As I put together a salad or warm up some leftovers, I anticipate the warmth of our connection. Sometimes I light a candle, sometimes I just look outside, but always I experience a calm that I associate with his calm, his kindness, his deep love for me.

This is a big change from my life-long habit of talking, reading or looking at a screen while I eat. Of course, it’s a healthier choice too – I’m tasting the food, noticing my hunger or fullness, even slowing down and chewing mindfully.  My renewed commitment at 70 is affirmed by my dear dad, gone so long ago at 36.

I think you could call this new prayer experience a return to innocence. I imagine this nest of safety and love, myself as a little girl, and I gratefully rest here…held by loving arms, at peace, and experiencing deep trust. My dad speaks and strokes my hair, I am truly nourished. I hear Enigma’s words and see entrancing images as I return to innocence:

Don’t care what people say
Just follow your own way
Don’t give up and use the chance
To return to innocence

Irish poet and philosopher John O’Donohue speaks of our ancestors in the “Celtic circle of eternity.” In a recent post, Richard Rohr quotes O’Donohue’s vision, stating,

“The Celtic Irish tradition recognizes that the eternal and the transient worlds are woven in and through each other. Very often at death, the inhabitants of the eternal world come out toward the visible world.”

I’m grateful for Rohr and O’Donohue’s affirmation of the mystery that I am entering and I love Enigma’s video that illustrates something of my experience. But, mostly, I am content to sit here – in silence – with my dad.

I might just start having breakfast with him, too.

with love, Lisa

5 Comments

  • Reply Kathleen Pooler March 14, 2021 at 6:14 am

    What a beautiful —peaceful—idea. For me, it is walks with my dad. Those were such precious memories. Love the video. Thanks for sharing.

  • Reply Lisa A Irish March 14, 2021 at 3:49 pm

    You are welcome Kathy! Thank YOU for responding, for entering my world and sharing yours. Isn’t that video something? So thought-provoking! More sunshine today, thank goodness, yes!!

  • Reply Christy March 24, 2021 at 7:02 pm

    Lisa, I love this “new prayer experience of a return to innocence” and the way you describe a “nest of safety and love” so poetically that that adds a new dimension to this beloved song for me. Thank you sharing this moving experience and prayer.

    • Reply Lisa Irish April 29, 2021 at 8:41 pm

      Thank you, Christy, sorry for the delay in responding – grateful for your voice!

  • Reply Janey Murphy July 30, 2021 at 6:32 pm

    Those who we love never really leave us. Love is the strongest bond souls have that connect us together. Death is just a change in time and place.

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