Blog 356 – 07.28.2016
(Excerpt from the book The Little Girl Who Sang Her Song To Anyone Who Came Along)

Episode 28

The last song on the mixed CD that so comforted me when Emily took her leave of us is a song recorded by George Strait. Emily loved music from all genres. The song is entitled I’m Just An Ole Chunk of Coal.

Growing up a poor city boy in Chattanooga, Tennessee I know about chunks of coal. Our more affluent cousins visited us one Christmas and asked what that pile of black rocks was in our back yard. It was a half ton of coal that we brought into the house one coal skuttle at a time to feed the heater in our living room. Those dirty black rocks kept us warm and also kept a string of black smoke streaming from our chimney all winter. We understood perhaps better that today’s kids do what the significance of a lump of coal in your Christmas stocking meant. It meant bad children did not deserve gifts any better than an almost worthless lump of coal.

I would like to say again here that I do not believe anyone or anything is worthless or as Em’s poem on my trunk said, “We don’t believe in war and we don’t believe in junk.” The two are quite related in a way. To believe in war or junk you have to buy into the dualistic concept of good and bad, black and white, valuable stuff and junk.

I believe the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden of Eden story has been misinterpreted by most. I no longer believe God threw his creation out of the garden like taking out the trash because they were “bad” or broke a rule. What I do believe is that God never intended then or now for us to think in terms of good and bad, black and white, or yes and no. The LORD God is One is a phrase uttered over and over again in the Old Testament. Everything God created he/she pronounced good. And in the New Testament we are told that all the promises of God are Yes, Yes. The yes being said twice for emphasis like verily, verily. So where did the split occur in the mind of man? When did man begin listening to another voice instead of the One True Voice of his or her own Higher Self? When he believed his own creation, Ego, who lead him to distrust himself and set up Ego up as a false god, another god the one who whispers against his brothers and makes them enemies. We are instructed to pray for our enemies and those who hatefully use us. Jesus did, “Father forgive them for they don’t know what they’re doing.” We have no enemies only brothers. Don’t get me wrong brothers are capable of horrendous acts against their brothers.

The American Civil War or as the unreconstructed southerners prefer to call it The War Between the States is thought to be an especially terrible war because brothers fought against brothers but all wars are so since the first brother Cain killed his brother Abel. To make it seem easier to kill our brothers we call them names like Zero, Zip, or Gook to pretend they are less than what they truly are, divine and magnificent beings just as we are – brothers of the same Father God and Mother Earth.

In the song by George Strait he sings:

I’m just an ole chunk of coal
But I’m going to be a diamond
someday.
I’m gonna grow and glow
Till I’m so blue clear perfect
I’m gonna put a smile on
everybody’s face.

I have come to believe that Emily, George, and each and everyone of us is already that blue clear perfect diamond or as one of the Ten Intentions for a Better World states: “I am a magnificent being awakening to my highest potential.” We have listened too long to that negative and demeaning voice that inspired the words and so many to buy into them, “Would he devote that sacred head for such a worm as I.” We are not worms, nor even mere men but as He was so are we in this world – God, him/her self enjoying an adventure in Time and Space.

Emily’s was a great adventure and I am so glad that she chose me to play the role of daddy in her passion play and that she consented for a while to play daughter in mine. To quote from a Charlie Pride song:

I wouldn’t have missed it
For the world.
Wouldn’t have missed
Loving you, Girl.
I wouldn’t have missed it
For the world.

They and we are not now nor ever have been not even when committing the most despiteful act against our own self a mere chunk of coal we are and have always been and will always be a diamond reflecting the wondrous light inside us which truly is us. Jesus said, “I am the light of the world.” And in another place he said, “You are the light of the world.” See the family resemblance? Brothers all are we and all deserving of not only Christmas gifts but every perfect gift that comes down from the father of lights.

Emily did not always see that clearly. Like most of us she only caught glimpses of the glorious truth of Who and Whose she truly was but didn’t she shine and sparkle like the diamond she truly was.

Your friend and fellow traveler, Emily’s Dad
David White