Effect Essay

Perhaps due to my chosen line of employment, and the innate sense of irrationality I house, I've always had a fear of my father getting older without really having known him. There was a distinct moment, when I found myself in the shower one morning, crying because of that fear. I felt wracked by the realization that the skin of childhood had finally come off, shed almost, and the new skin was vulnerable and soft. The lenses my eyes looked through were different. Not as hazy, more sharp, life having more jagged edges than I'd noticed before. And, suddenly, I wanted him. My life has never been without his presence, either emotionally or physically, but I found it different to know and love someone as a dependent child than as an independent adult. So I decided to seek him out.

It'd been a long time since I'd studied the Bible. It'd been a long time since I'd even opened one. I still had the one that I had as a child and it had it's place on my book shelves next to all other religious texts I owned. But, it was more out of tradition, out of respect, than any kind of interest. Despite my current lack of interest then, a Bible study is exactly how I reached out to my father. He is a very spiritual man and I can be a very manipulative woman, knowing full well that he couldn't resist just one more chance to save his daughter. Perhaps he is the manipulative one because a study that, in my mind, was supposed to transform into a social hour absent of the Bible, has remained a study. And I have come every week loaded with an armful of questions from my own studies at home, when I am alone, opening the book to find answers. I am reading the Bible again, on my own, seeking out its comfort, secretly stashing it in my book bag to quietly read during lunch. I have found myself starting my mornings with a scripture, carrying it in my mind during the day.

During every study, my father begins with a prayer. Despite always meeting at the same public place, bowing my head and listening to his words, has never seemed awkward or embarrassing. At first, though, I used to tune the words out, absently and vacantly saying "Amen" at the end. The whole study was a farce to get to the real thing I wanted, my father. After a couple of months, it finally dawned on me that to be close to him, to truly be close to him, one had to attempt being close to God. And, when spending any amount of time with a soul so convinced, living with such belief and faith, I find it difficult to ignore. Now, when he prays, I bow my head and close my eyes, and feel them getting hot as I listen to his fervent requests and pleas. I have even picked up the habit of prayer myself. At night, when thoughts used to flog me endlessly, I'm praying instead and often falling asleep during that prayer. Sleep is suddenly sound and peaceful and I wake with a sense of meaning. After a few weeks of prayer at night, I've begun what I call "walking prayer." At particular moments of stress or anxiety, such as at work, I will literally walk down the halls and silently pray.

Now, this woman who loves the sound of a swear, who loves inflammatory remarks for the sake of the reaction, who loves rebellion and it's intrigue, who loves to hate and judge and snicker like the next imperfect soul, has found a moderator. The wild child who would rather have spit on a book than let it tell her what to do, is now opening its covers for just that purpose. Through my father's weekly guidance and love, there is meaning found and answers discovered in a book that some people no longer believe to be God's Word. To me, at this point in my life, it is.

My coworkers and husband have noted a sense of contentment in my demeanor lately. They've commented on my ease of presence. I'm not consumed so hastily by my own anger, have attempted to be less judgmental, more forgiving, more tolerant. The perpetual grip of loneliness that we all feel has been loosened by the sense of knowing that, as my father tells me, if you seek God out, you will find Him. I thought I was only seeking out my father, that I would not allow us to grow old without knowledge of each other, but it was really a twofold result. I found my father, I found his passions as his eyes fill and his voice cracks as he reads a passage. I found his hopes, his purposes, his intentions. And, with one phone call, with one study, I have begun to find mine. That old skin I've shed replaced with something hard and sturdy and full of belief.