When I was a child, I would frequently go to the switch tree, to choose the weapon that would be used on my backside. I was only three and four years old but I learned quickly to choose a switch that was thicker, as the thinner switches stung and raised bloody whelps on your skin. I was always into something... My mother was gone to find work and my grandparents raised me during those first few years of my life... I never really knew my biological father very well. When I did visit with him, he almost always ignored me. I felt as if he wished he could just forget about that part of his life, where I was his son. I tried a few times, to make our lives connect as an adult but he is in his 70's now, with poor health, and he turned into some kind of paramoid, far right, religious zealot... He was a life long union member, who advocated for the little man but then he found God and these days he sends me awful emails telling me how evil those illegal immigrants are(I was named after his best friend...an illegal immigrant) and how evil Muslims are... My Stepfather always treated me decently and you know, that is something I will always respect... but when I think about my biological father... I wonder sometimes, how my life would have been, if he had been more involved in my life than the shallow relationship that we had... I have had such a tough life... things never worked out for me. Three busted marriages... children strewn across half of Texas... I work as a teacher... do carpentry on the side...and I work and I work and still I am always poor...

Although my grandparents thought 'switching' me was the kind of medicine I needed... I never could turn to that kind of brutality... for my own... Through three failed marriages, through seven children, borrowed and my own who have called me Papa, Dadee, Rudi, father or dad... I never could get much into the beating thing... I would sometimes swat at them, my children and those I borrowed, when they were attempting to stick keys into an electric socket or when they were strangling each other... but... I mostly held back my hand...

I look at my life... three broken necks later... and I can't help but think sometimes, when I think of those decades of pain, how I must be one of the tough cases... a hard headed misbehaving child... in the hands of an angry God... but then I remember the most loving light I met in my NDE... a being made of Love who was simply amazed by my little light... I mean... that kind of love is more than anyone could ever imagine... That light was amazing to me but more... that light also loved all of those other little orbs of light more than anyone could ever imagine... Returning to my body, from heaven, I met a lesser aspect of God... He was much more like my biological father... indifferent... a being who only cared about me when I was speaking to him... who wished he had never created me... but since I was there... I was going to have to live a hard life... in a world where everything was hard... and everyone lived by the rule, 'an eye for an eye.'

Raising my children, I couldn't help but be a child of the lesser God of this world but I had already had a NDE, before I ever started raising children. I had a very personal and intimate relationship with 'The Light' when I was only 20 years old. To this day, we have a constant conversation. I know that I am not 'all that.' I know my children will never say I was a a good father... far from it... but if I were the one who created this world... if I were the God of this world, I would never break my children's necks to teach them a lesson... and I don't feel a desire to take out a switch on them... I never get the feeling of returing every harm with harm...

My Granny who raised me, until I was four, the one who switched my hide red... she changed somehow... She is now well into her 90's. Somewhere along life's path, Granny changed into one of the kindest, most gentle and loving human beings you would ever know... But sometimes, I think the God of this world changes as well... even though in ancient old books it says he never will... The mean ole' God of my youth... who hates Muslims and Homo's... Atheists and Communists too did change for me, after my NDE. Somehow, like my Granny and the God of my youth, they both changed into wonderful, merciful and loving beings of light... that loved me like her brightest star in the sky... who loved me like her long lost son... who cherished me but more... that mean ole' God of my youth changed into the being of light I met in my NDE... from a God who would crush his people's enemies and burn them in hell into a being of divine love who loved those Muslims... Homo's... Atheists and Communists like her brighest stars...who loved them like her long lost children... who cherished them all , cared for them all and only wanted what is best for all of them...
Somehow, perhaps, we all will one day change into the likeness of my Granny... I saw it in my NDE... everyone loving on one another... I know this is how it will be... I only hoped it would come sooner...for my children... and their children...and the all of God's children in the world...

My youngest daughter... she broke a window... swatting at it because there was a bug on the other side... I could have been angry... I could have been mean...I could have been mad even... I could have turned to my child and sent her to a switch tree. I don't have the money to replace it just now... I will in a few days... but the last thing I would ever think to do would be to switch her... or beat her... or even yell at her... It was an accident... so what does a good father do?

Late in the morning, as we were preparing to go swimming... My little one said " Dadee! Look at the rainbow!" I mumbled something about there not being any rain and how could it be but then she showed me... on the floor... The sun had shined through the duct tapped window, and through the cracked glass; on the floor was a perfect prism rainbow. It was a beautiful thing... a lesson that day... a moment we shared... a shining clear moment that time will never take away... My daughter taught me a lesson about creating rainbows through broken glass... It may be a memory that soon fades away... but on the other side... it is a crystal treasure... a little piece of forever... that a switch or a beating would have ruined... I am no wonderful father... I make lots of mistakes... but I treasure those moments more than anything... more than even the God of this world... and if I have to learn my lessons with broken necks... I hope I gave my little one a better God than the God of my biological father, the God of my youth... I hope I shared with her how true love really loves... and I hope she will raise her children... with love that shines through the broken glass in her life...

I know my children and lovers... and all of my ex-wives would not give you the best report of my hubandry, lover, or fatherly skills... I am probably much more like my biological father than I care to admit... but I do love them all... all of them... and I never stopped loving anyone long enough to pull out a switch... or ditch them and leave them for the world to eat up. Although I might not have been the best lover, best husband or father... no one can take from me those moments... Not even the God of this world can steal from me, how much I loved each and every one of them, through it all... But, just like my biological father...who would give the shirt off his back to a stranger but ignore his own... I am sure I do that sometimes... I am always helping others... But I did try to do more than my biological father and the God of this world, to teach my little ones to be kind to others, by example... And not to just people like me but to Muslims and Homos... Communists and Atheists too... and it may not have been the lessons that they will need to survive the God of this world... but I hope they at least know what was important to me...

Love to all,

rudi