So why did I decide to call my first book The Superman Effect: My Quest for the Moment When Everything Changes?
We'll save "My quest for the moment when everything changes" for another day. Let’s just take today why The Superman Effect? Is it because I'm faster than a speeding bullet? Well, I did run three half marathons but the fastest run had a snail’s pace 12-minute split, so that’s not it.
Am I able to leap tall buildings in a single bound? In my dreams! Literally, in my dreams. I have flying dreams all the time and they are awesome. Superman has been a motif in my life ever since I was eight years old. I mentioned earlier that my mother took me to see Superman the movie when I was eight. Superman became my instant action hero of choice. My mother bought me a Superman rubber action figure and I would not let it leave my sight. Then came the day we moved on up from our small apartment on Fordham Road to our first house in the North Bronx. My parents were busy packing, my sisters were staying out of their way and I was playing with my Superman action figure. I stuck my hand out the window of our 8th floor flat and pretended to guide Superman’s flight. Now beneath our apartment, way down on the ground floor, I could see that there was an enormous heap of construction material. Like Buzz Light Year in Toy Story, Superman must have thought this is his time to show off and leave the secure hands of his father. He slipped right through my fingers and headed straight down to landfill.
My heart stopped. What was I to do? Even as an eight year old, I knew there was no sense even telling my parents I had dropped my greatest treasure. There was nothing they could do. I guess they could have bought me another toy but I did not even consider the option. I looked down and saw where it landed. I did not cry, I wept. I took a hiatus from my fascination with Superman. I felt like he had left me and I no longer had any use for him. We would no longer play together. At least not until May 17, 2009.
When the scene from the movie when Clark Kent became Superman flashed before my eyes that day, it was as if my action figure found his way back to his boyhood friend. I could not contain my excitement as I sat in front of my computer and started typing the words:
The Superman Effect
My Quest for the Moment When Everything Changes
By Dennis Rodriguez
May 17, 2009
Since then a few other scenes from the movie have played an important role in my journey towards Resignation Day. I’ll recount one more.
One day in August, I was at my daughter’s swimming class and I was drawn to a little boy on a leash guided by his mother. I immediately felt a strong pull to pay attention to his every step and so I watched him. He looked as if he had a malformed mouth and what seemed to look like a tube tied to his mid-section. Suddenly the little boy laid down on the fitness center floor and did not move. His mother did not miss a beat. “Sweetheart, are you hungry?” She took out some sort of electronic measurement device and proceeded to feed him liquid through the tube by his waist. “Is your son diabetic?” I asked. “No, he was born with a congenital heart condition and the reflux keeps him from being able to eat through his mouth.” My heart sank. His mother seemed so peaceful and accepting. She understood that she could still love her son and that made everything ok. As soon as the mother was done feeding, the boy popped up and began to move about. His energy had returned as quickly as it had left.
I could not get the little boy out of my mind. A few days later, I was meditating on the little boy with the intention of praying for a healing and had a profound experience. I saw in my mind’s eye an embryo. The embryo's life was at a fork in the road, the point in which either organ health or malformation was possible. Electricity ran through my body as I realized that what I was experiencing at some energetic level was a past moment in time when the little boy’s malformation first took place. I watched as the healthy choice was manifested. It brought intense energy movement throughout my entire body. I next had another image come to mind from the movie Superman: This time when Superman loses it after finding Lois Lane, lifeless in the earthquake rubble. He screams and flies high above the earth causing the earth to spin in opposite direction and go back in time to the moment before the earthquake in the hopes of saving her. I immediately saw the connection.
Now before you wonder whether I’ve flown with Superman over the cookoo’s nest, let me say that I have not seen the little boy again. I have no idea whether there was an actual healing. I do know that it brought me closer to the little boy’s energy and with it, a sense of peace. Superman reminds me that now is the time to play, to remember my flying dreams, to time travel and to serve.
"And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven"- Jesus, Mathew 18:3
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