Father John Series #9

Chapter 9

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Father John had been consulting with Bob weekly now for over four years. Finally, he got the transfer back to Mexico where he always wanted to be. He would work with the native Aztecs in Southern Mexico. This was to be his final session with Bob.Father John came to the front door as usual. And as usual it was open. He rang the door bell. He heard Bob's dog, Jenny, answer immediately with a bark and the clicking of her toenails against the hardwood as her four feet ran to greet him. Bob yelled his familiar, "come on back."Jenny herded Father John down the hall through the kitchen to Bob's back porch and his white round table and white rotating pedestal plastic chairs. Bob was waiting for him seated in one of the chairs reading the paper and sipping his tea.“Make yourself a cup of tea or coffee if you like,” Bob said. “And come sit.”By now Father John knew where hot water was and the French press Bob used to make individual cups of coffee. He poured hot water in the French press, brought it out to the porch with a cup and sat it in front of him on the table to let it steep for a time until it was ready to pour into the cup.“Are you excited about going back to Mexico?” Bob asked.“Yes,” Father John said. "I am, but I'm going to miss you.”“Oh nonsense,” Bob said. “You have mastered all I have to teach and more. You have the third position in your bones now. You have used it to mediate disputes, to understand the Bishop, to construct a third community type, to learn how to be a teacher, to raise money for the church. I can't think of all the ways you have put it to use.”“I know, Bob,” Father John said. “Yes, I think I have discovered a new skill, a new way to think, a better way to care and I can't exactly describe it, but I also think I have found a new me.”“I know what you mean,” Bob said. “The third position works on you, doesn’t it?”“Yes it does,” Father John said. The conversation paused for some time as Father John poured his coffee from the French press into his cup and they supped their hot drinks. As they drank they were both admiring the garden in the backyard, the product of Lynn, Bob's wife's hard work. It was fall. The dogwood leaves were a red purple. The maples were orange and yellow. The grass was still very green and the leathery red and orange leaves of the oak leaf hydrangea next to the garage created a noble architecture to the scene.“Bob, I’ve been wondering about something,” The words of Father John interrupted this reverie of silent, shared communion. “Is there a fourth position?”Before Bob could answer Bob’s dog, Jenny, began barking and running to the racket at the front of the house.“It’s me,” a voice yelled from the front door.“Come on back,” Bob yelled. “That’s David McMillan. I recognize his voice. You met him some time ago. He has done a lot to help me discover the wide range of the third position. He has helped me expand it into the concrete world of practice as have you.”David appeared in the doorway.“I’m glad you are here,” Bob said. “Father John was asking me a question about the fourth position. Since this was your idea, David, you might explain it to him. I don’t really like to talk about it.”“I’ll pour myself some tea,” David said. As he was pouring his tea David asked Father John, “So what do you want to know about the fourth position?”“Is there one?” Father John asked.“Bob you haven’t told him about this?”“Yes, I did once,” Bob said. He looked at Father John and said, “That was when you consulted me about the police (see chapter three).”“That’s right, I barely remember that,” Father John said.“David can do a much more thorough job of explaining the fourth position,” Bob said. “I feel uncomfortable talking about this. Perhaps that is why it didn’t make an impression on you when we talked about it earlier.”“So, David, tell me about the fourth position,” Father John said.“I call it home,” David said.“Home?” Father John said.“Yes,” David confirmed. “Home. It is death. It is perfection. It is the ideal, the end of the journey. We humans at best can only work with three positions. The fourth position is in a parallel plane. It is in another reality. It is where I believe we go when our life is over.”“The fourth position is heaven?” Father John said amazed.“No,” Bob said emphatically no. “I don't believe in heaven. See, this is the reason I don't talk about this. People will confuse it with some sort of religious nonsense. And I suppose it is religious. And certainly it may be nonsense. But it is not part of an earth, heaven, hell, purgatory complex.”“Then what is it?”Bob hesitated. He looked up and then all around. His hands came together and each one squeezed and wrung the other. “I'm not sure I want to talk about this,” he said. “David you explain.”“Bob what is it?” Father John said, “I've never seen you this upset.”“This is hard for me to talk about,” Bob said. “For me this is personal.”“Why is that?” Father John asked.“When I was in high school I had an epiphany at church camp. I decided I wanted to become a Presbyterian minister,” Bob began. “I had a strong faith. In my first semester of college I decided to major in psychology rather than philosophy because I liked the psych professors and I didn’t like the philosophy faculty as well. I was a student minister throughout my four college years and preached on Sundays at the rural Presbyterian churches that had no minister. By the time I was a senior I became convinced that the minister’s job was preaching to the converted. Though I wanted to be a minister I wanted to do more than preach to the converted.“My senior year I thought I would go to graduate school in psychology and go on to seminary later, once I finished my Masters degree in psychology. During my 1st year in grad school I heard a Wednesday night radio show in which the lead statement was, ‘you may be a Unitarian and don’t know it.’ The theme of that minister’s talk was the improvement of life on earth, rather than in heaven. I contrasted this with my Presbyterian teachings about working for salvation and eternal life. I decided then and there to be a Unitarian. I wanted to devote myself to making this life better for all of us, here on earth.“I was raised as a moderate Christian, not a fundamentalist. But the virgin birth, resurrection and Armageddon all took away attention from improving things on this plane. I appreciated Jesus teachings about lilies of the field and I appreciated the Jewish notion of confession of sin and the healing and redemption that comes from the truth. I was impressed that Jesus contributed the concept that love and compassion can replace vengeance and fear. But I wasn’t sure that Christianity was the only faith that taught this.“Choosing to be a Unitarian was not any easy decision for me. Once I became clear about what I believed and what I didn’t, I knew I could never become a Presbyterian minister. That=s when I decided to become a psychologist. None of this sat well with my mother. She sent her Presbyterian minister after me to pull me back into the flock. I was really offended by this. How dare him or anyone tell me what to believe about God. I left my parents way of life. I traded in rural Idaho farm community life for city life, church centered living for academic scholarship, life dominated by the weather for life dominated by whimsy of the academe. I have always had some regrets about this decision.”“So what does this have to do with the fourth position?” Father John asked.“Well,” Bob said. "I'm not sure, except that the fourth position for me is God or perfection. It is the place of absolutes and Truth with a capital T. And just like I don't want anyone telling me what I have to believe about God, I don't want to tell anyone what they should believe. Wars are fought over ideas like this. I don’t ever want to try to impose my ideas about this on someone else. It reminds me of Mother’s Presbyterian minister coming after me. I guess that is why talking about this makes me so uncomfortable.”“I understand your reluctance now,” Father John said. “But I still don't understand the fourth position.”“David, you explain it,” Bob said.“Okay let's start with the reptilian brain,” David said.“Do we have to?” Father John moaned.“Father John doesn’t like intellectual academic language remember?” Bob said.“Okay the reptile's brain. What about it?” Father John said.“In the human brain the reptile brain structure is replicated as a small amount of gray matter and the brain stem.”“So what?” Father John said.“All it allows us to do is to have reflexes,” David said. “The reptilian brain gives us no choice. We have only one reflexive, reaction. That is what infants have. They have reflexes. All the other parts of the brain are a long way from maturation.”“I still don't get it,” Father John said.“That is the first position, expressed as an instinctive desire or response. We can't entertain two positions until our brains mature a bit more. At age 5 our mammalian brain matures. That is where our emotions are. That part of the brain, think dogs brain about the size of a fist, sits on top of the reptilian brain. That part of the brain contains the amygdala and the hypothalamus. These brain circuit’s give us two choices fight or flight, enemy or ally, good or bad, black or white, etc.”“So that allows us a second position,” Father John said.“Right,” David concurred. “And the neo-cortex or the human brain allows us to think abstractly, to be aware that we have two choices and to imagine more. The human brain gives us the capacity for a third position.”“I think I’ve heard this before,” Father John said. “I know about three positions. I just don’t quite get the fourth one.“I’m sorry. I have to start from the beginning,” David said. “Think of the first position as only a point. The second position creates a line. With the creation of a line, think about how many points can exist on a line between the polarities. Imagine each of these points as one possible resolution to a debate. A line creates many more possible answers.“Now watch what the addition of a third position does. It creates a plane. Imagine how many more points can exist inside that plane. I'm not sure we could calculate all the potential points inside a plane. These represent potential problem solutions. See how a third position adds to the possibilities.”AI see this,” Father John said, “and not for the first time.”“Well now imagine a fourth point above the other three, creating a pyramid,” David said.“Now I remember,” Father John said looking at Bob. “You told me about the top of the pyramid, but I’m not sure I know what it represents.”“It represents the one right answer, the platonic ideal, the golden mean, the absolute Truth and God,” Bob said.“Bob, I thought you didn’t believe in absolutes except when it has to do with the absolute authority on one's feelings,” Father John noted. “And then, you believe the person who has the feelings is the absolute authority on them.”“Yes, that is what I said,” Bob agreed. “Think about an atom. An atom oscillates over nine billion times a second. If that's true how can reality remain the same? Things change. Yes, we all have the same basic emotions. And cyanide will kill all of us. But tomorrow a baby may be born with a new basic emotion. Even our species may change. We are all changing constantly. There may be thresholds, where suddenly you change like the day you road your bicycle for the first time, your first date, your first sexual experience, your ordination as a priest, my Ph.D., your first church, the birth of my first child, the day I was diagnosed with Parkinson. These seem to be sudden changes, but they are not really. They are the product of constant moment-to-moment, second-to-second change. With all this change, what stays the same? What answer will always apply? We need all those points in the plane. We need all the possible positions in a pyramid.”“So, this is why you say all things are relative?” Father John said.“Yes,” Bob said. “But maturity teaches us some things. All adults understand that cooperation is more effective than competition. Most adults understand the character that comes from accountability, that mistakes are simply an opportunity for growth and new learning.“I know this family,” David said. “The twenty year old son fathered a child out of wedlock. His sister hated the new mother for ruining her brother's life. The father and mother of the twenty year old would not pay any medical bills during the pregnancy in hopes the pregnancy would miscarry. After the birth the new grandparents would not attend the child's first birthday party. The 85 year old now great-grandfather of the same family bought the mother a minivan and told her he would do anything he could to help her raise his great grandchild. To a man as close to death as he was, he understood what really mattered.”“I'm sick with a terminal disease,” Bob said. “My disease has helped me understand what really matters. And those things include love, compassion, respect and hope. As I move up in age I rise toward the fourth position. I have more to learn, but I have learned and grown a lot. Even my disease brings me closer to the fourth position. When I get there, I will know it all. I will have that perfect perspective. I will be spiritually whole and I will be dead. That's home for me. That's the fourth position.“Perfection is synonymous with death. I don't want to be in that fourth position yet. I enjoy making mistakes, not knowing and learning. I'm not ready for home, but someday I think I will be.”“I see why you don't want to talk about this,” Father John said. "I'm not sure I do either. I'm not ready for the fourth position.”“No, you're not,” Bob said. “But you don't walk with a shuffle. You don't fall asleep in the middle of a meeting. You are not a burden on those you love. I'm not ready either, but I'm closer to being ready for home than you are.”They sat there in silence for a time. None of them knew what to say next. None of them wanted to speak. All wanting to hold on to this intimate moment. Then Bob said, “I’m glad David got to tell you his ideas about the fourth position. I agree with them, but they came from him. That’s the good thing about any good notion. Other people can use it and elaborate on it for their purposes. I hope you will take the idea of the third position as David has and make them your own. You have already mastered this tool. Play with it, extend it, and discover ideas in the third position that I never imagined. I think you can do that on your own now.”“My bladder is telling me to empty it,” Bob said. The he stood, hugged Father John good bye and shuffled off to the bathroom.Father John talked a bit more with David and began walking out the door.As Father John was leaving he thought he heard Bob come out of the bathroom and say, "See you at home someday."The End