Who am I, and What do I believe?

My name is Rev. Gola Wolf Richards, and through years of deep friendship and collaboration with Christopher Hunt M.D., from the Roy A. Hunt Foundation, we founded BroadcastWisdom.com and The Institute for Contemplative Education in Maine. I was born in 1946, and several years ago, I authored and recorded a free contemplative audiobook titled The Way to See (W)hole®; which is tersely poetic, complemented with fantastic illustrations, and concisely outlining a myth; emphasizing how sage perspectives for conflict-resolution not only evoke and evolve direct and indirect modes of change, but integral, acausal modes of change, that occur through synchronicity. If I think of “The Way to See (W)hole®” in terms of my own family background, it is my father's gift to my mother; offered to amend how he enmeshed her life in conflicts that grew like weeds from his personality. On the other hand, regarding the way that wisdom relates to ignorance, The Way to See (W)hole® is my mother’s gift; offered to support all the spiritual revolutionaries we need, to positively alter the course of history.

Born on Christmas Day in 1900, my father’s birthday reflects two distinct states of mind. On the one hand, I associate my father’s birth with the origins of chaos; yet on the other hand, like the time of the winter solstice, chaos is always transformed through enlightenment. My father died on April Fool's Day, 1958; and in dreams after his death, his influence became that of a shaman; functioning as a spiritual antidote to tragedy. In life, despite how horrific he was, he was also immensely complex; showing great tenderness for animal welfare, homeless people, and others.  And as in his performances as a minister, he was a keenly intelligent radio broadcaster, newspaper columnist; sensitively responsible for labor, housing, and public engagement for civil rights. As an intensely song-throated African-American preacher, his cultural roots in Arkansas and Texas were plainly evident in the pulpit; just as the afflictions in his psychology were plainly evident, in how his emotions could shut off; so completely that any relationship that he had to Jesus was completely filtered through hell.

Coming from a childhood that began with a casual fuck, quickly followed by abandonment, my father only knew severe neglect, physical abuse, and criminality; which left him explosive enough to instantly sin, by killing any sense of self-control guided by kindness. In 1958, as he passed away in deep remorse and suffering, for the first time after twenty-five years of breaking Mama's body and demeaning her spirit, in tears and barely able to speak, he asked my mother for her forgiveness; and with complete sincerity, she did. Standing in his hospital room the day before he died, I was unable to do any more than resent him; and deliberately or not, I acted like a stone, as his eyes pleaded with mine for understanding. As I looked back at him, the feeling that I clearly hoped to project was that if he lived, it would be a great disappoint.

On Valentine’s Day, 2001, my mother passed from time to timelessness. There by her side as her years of suffering faded away, I couldn’t help but remember a time when I was just five years old, when my father had threatened to kill me, if I ever interrupted him again, while he was pounding my mother’s head with his fist onto our concrete floor to kill her. With one hand on her throat and his other huge fist attempting to burst her head, as quickly as I jumped on his back screaming "Daddy please don't kill my mama!", he flung me off; then with his finger in my face, he threatened my life for attempting to save my mother. Years later, at my mother’s side as she died, I remembered the reason that Mama was sprawled unconscious on the floor that day; which was for buying the "wrong size eggs" for breakfast.  With no money, no professional skills, and no one safe to talk to, Mama was imprisoned as much by being responsible for her six children as she was to being a captive of brute domination. And with the church community being too weak or too afraid to offer protection, the darkness that controlled Rev. Richards mocked her frailty, for as long as he lived. Often sexually humiliated, verbally assaulted, and knocked into unconsciousness numerous times like a step in a dance, Mama lived in fear from room to room; and even from thought to thought. Yet, over the years of my father's dark subjugation, when my mother and I were alone, she explained that the insanity that governed my father was less important than the sanity we needed, to survive injury to our souls. Thinking to maintain her sanity and sanity among her children was how my Mama endured. And whenever it was safe to speak, she told me that when anyone's character fails, someone else must learn how and why insanity must become understood and forgiven.

At age fifteen, three years after my father's death, on my walk home from school, quite by surprise I began to cry as I repeatedly called out for my Daddy. Once home, I immediately dropped on my bed and fell asleep. That afternoon and for two nights to follow, Daddy came in dreams, begging to be forgiven. The first two days of dreaming ended with me spitting in his face, and hurling insults at him; and as I did so, blood streaked from the cuts on his face that appeared every time that I cursed him. On the third night, covered in blood with deep wounds in his face, Daddy returned, pleading once again for forgiveness; and this time, overcome with a sense of understanding and pity, instead of cursing him, I kissed his bloody face. Then, as immediately as I kissed him, the cuts and blood vanished and his gratitude swelled, as he thanked me over and over again; as in shifting waves of light, his form became that of a young man, who receded into a brilliant light. The following morning, the weight of anger that I hadn’t realized that I was carrying was gone; and I likewise sensed that my father was freed from rage. From then to now, my sincere belief is that what I teach about conflict-resolution is founded on a dream.