I borrowed my father’s glasses.
They were uncomfortable and a heavy load for one so small,
but they offered the possibility of acceptance, so I put them on.

I wore my father’s glasses for so long, that they became my glasses.
Though images were distorted,
I took them as real.
I absorbed those distorted visions,
seeing right and wrong, good and bad
in that same way.

Fearing to question, lest all be lost,
righteousness became my ally, my closest friend.

I was attracted to those who agreed with me,
defensive and distrustful of those who didn’t.
“How could they be so wrong? How could they not understand,” I wondered?

And so, I bet, and built a life on my reaction to the view through my father’s glasses.
Son, husband, father, citizen, all colored by those lenses.

This view of the world served me well enough in the beginning,
but a mind in bondage is not a comfortable place to be.
I began to question, “Who am I, really?”

Then one day everything changed.
I had a vision.

Standing on a rolling hillside,
surrounded by millions of people,
and as if somehow guided,
I reached up and took off my father’s glasses.

With the clearer view of this inner focus,
I could see that almost without exception,
all humans were wearing their parents’ glasses.

And somehow I knew,
that when they looked back at me, or at each other,
their images were distorted reflections of borrowed vision,
and few understood that this was so.

Then like in a dream, the images before me shifted.
I could see that we all were bound to our ancestors and our children
by psychic connections;
each of us, links in long chains that extended from generation to generation.
Each link’s distortions, attached to both past and future.

And there were group chains, one for and by every culture,
each culture smashing against the others in righteous declaration.
And with each smashing together,
one claimed superiority, another, resentment and revenge.
And all views were passed through the chains to their young.

Then, suddenly,
individual links in the chains began to break apart.
Souls, as if waking from a long sleep in self-illusion, cried out,
“Wake up! Wake up! Now is the time.”

And many threw off their glasses,
and in each case the continuity of chains past was instantly shattered.
Like clouds breaking after a storm
a bright, white light flooded that new space of futures possible.

We basked in the loving, peacefulness of that light for as long as we could,
when a voice which seemed to emanate from within each of us,
spoke to us.

“You are not your stories,” it said.
“You are the creators of stories.”

Then, the vision ended.

As I came back into my normal consciousness,
there, in broken pieces at my feet, lay my father’s glasses.

I gathered up the pieces,
Said words of appreciation in honor of their service to me,
And stored them away, out of sight.

George Perkins
April, 2003