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Easter and the Funky Dollar Bill

Easter and the Funky Dollar Bill

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Last Sunday Alexa sent some photos and videos of Christian participating in the Hollywood Hills United Methodist Church Palm Sunday procession.

It was awesome.

He was waving his palm and dressed in a green robe.  The text Alexa sent us afterward said “Christian said at Sunday school they talked about Jesus.  The people who didn’t like him deaded him.”

Thursday evening, Holy Thursday, I sat on my deck and watched the full moon rise.  The pink moon it’s called from what I have read.  That moon is significant because Easter always occurs on the Sunday following the rising of that full moon.

Today being the day after Easter, I had off from work.  Today turned out to be Earth Day as well, which I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t heard on the radio while on one of my multiple trips to Home Depot to buy dirt and plants.  I think every weekend that it is not raining and I am not traveling this time of the year, is “Earth Day” at my house.

This weekend and today was particularly intense with earth activities.  We spent most of the weekend working on the yard, the koi pond, and the gardens.  As we usually do the day before Easter, we took a break from the yard to go to the cemetery and plant new flowers at Donny’s grave site.

 

Each spring when I clean up the yard and the gardens I cut down last year’s now brown and dry ornamental grasses so that the new growth can occur. In one such grass I cut down I found a long overlooked relic from an Easter past.  Stuck deep in the stubble of the now trimmed grass was a plastic Easter egg.  I opened it up and inside I found this funky old dollar bill, weathered from the years it was hidden and overlooked in its colored plastic shell.

 

Funky dollar bill.  I had to laugh a little when I thought about it.

When I was a freshman in high school, a kid down the street used to drive a few of us to school every day.  One day he had a new eight track tape for us to listen to by a band I had never heard of called Funkadelic.  It was a little out there, but it was awesome.  We would be head bobbing all the way from Oceanport to Shore Regional High School.

Funky Dollar Bill was a song written by George Clinton, a name that meant nothing to four white kids in 1971 but George would go on to be quite influential in music.

The song was from the album titled Free Your Mind and Your ♦♦♦ Will Follow (sorry, this is the redacted version of the title).  A now classic album in my opinion, it included a song by the same name. Of course I wouldn’t have known it in 70’s but I read recently that the album was said to have Christian themes.

 

“Free your mind…, the kingdom of heaven is within,” the opening lyrics repeated over and over throughout the song.

 

The kingdom of heaven is within.

 

The kingdom of God is within.

 

The kingdom of God is amongst us.

 

The Bible tells us Jesus would say that when asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come.

 

Jesus knew God had come and was already among them.

 

In the next chapter of Luke, Jesus would tell his disciples for the third time what was about to happen to him as was written by the prophets.

And then a few chapters later, as Christian learned, Jesus was “deaded.”  But it didn’t really have so much to do with those who didn’t like him, it was as it was meant to be, as it had to be.

And three days after that, prophesy was completely fulfilled.

 

So, I think George had it right.

Free your mind…

Because there is much that can follow.

Oh Daddy

Oh Daddy

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Me and my Pops
Me and my Pops

Oh Daddy

If I could make you see,

If there’s been a fool around,

It’s got to be me.

Why are you right when I’m so wrong,

I’m so weak but you’re so strong,

Everything you do is just all right

(Christine McVie)

 

Yeah right.  Can you imagine one of your kids singing that to you?

The Shore Regional High School Class of 1974 yearbook was called the Voyager.  Towards the end of the Voyager was a section that may be all yearbooks contain, I don’t know; but it listed a couple of personal characteristics and predicted your status in ten years.  It was the Is/Can Be Found/Status in 1984 section. Well at least in my case it was 1984, but you are probably familiar.

Mine went like this:

Christiansen, Curtis

Is: Reliable?

Can be Found:  Playing his harmonica

Status in 1984: Daddy

I remember at the time, I wasn’t so sure I liked the Reliable with the question mark tag. But now I acknowledge my ADD tendencies and totally understand.

I thought that the Playing the harmonica was cool.  I still do a little of that.

I particularly liked the Status in 1984: Daddy.  You see I was looking forward to being a father.  I thought at the time, I would make a good one.

I recently read the autobiography of Mick Fleetwood, titled Play On.

In fact I read it twice.

I have always been a big Fleetwood Mac fan.  Most people are familiar with Fleetwood Mac from the Rumours album, the one that featured the song “Oh Daddy” written by Christine McVie.

I found myself drawn to this book and his story because I found many parallels to my life; the music I remembered; the sixties and seventies and everything good and bad that went along with that; family struggles; raising kids; raising girls.

But there was another thing I thought interesting, he admitted to feeling that he was never particularly good at anything.

That’s interesting because I have always felt that same way about myself.  I have always felt that I was never particularly good at anything either!

In just a little over a week I will turn sixty years old.  And just as my yearbook had predicted, in 1984 I was a Daddy.  I became a father in November of 1982.

You would expect that by my age I would have had the opportunity and the ability to be really good at something. You might expect, for instance, with that many years of parenting experience I would at least be good at that.  Good at being a father.  But the truth is everyday continues to be a learning experience, some days with struggles; some days with victories, others with regrets; but inevitably there is that nagging doubt and the thought that I could have done better, I should have done better, or I should be doing better.

I once thought the best thing I could teach my kids was how important it was to work hard; working hard no matter what the job.

I had always felt that way and lived that way, I have no guilt there.  But I have learned,  maybe too late in life, that working hard wasn’t the most important thing after all.

Because now I realize the most important thing in life is learning.  And I know now that I should have spent less time at working hard and more time at learning and growing.  Maybe if I had done that I would have had something I was good at by now.

And if I had worked less  I could have spent more time with my kids growing up and as a result, I would have been more prepared for changes in their lives and changes in mine that I didn’t foresee or expect.

This Father’s Day is special because I get to spend it with all my kids and my Dad gets to meet his newest great grandson for the first time.

This Father’s Day is also special because I also get to spend it with my Dad.  There was a time when I wouldn’t have been able to sing those Oh Daddy lyrics to my father either. But I could now.  So maybe I have learned one thing, how to be a better son.

Maybe that will make me a better father too.

And maybe my prophetic classmates were more right than I would like to admit.  Maybe there are some aspects of my life I can be more reliable at.

And I don’t mean playing the harmonica.

In the mean time I will keep trying and keep learning.

Oh Daddy,

You soothe me with your smile

You’re letting me know,

You’re the best thing in my life

 

Happy Father’s Day Pop!