on parenting... part 2

JW's comment on my earlier post entitled "on parenting" is a thoughtful response to my seemingly pollyanna conception of God's activity in parenthood. I do not deny that human nature and simple biology are what have "given" Jenni and I a child, nor did I intend to imply that being "entrusted" with parenting a child has anything to do with ones fit-ness to parent. Indeed, I think a recognition of child-rearing as a very human enterprise involving choice, action and consequence is needed for parenting thoughtfully and responsibly. Yet, I do not want to lose the sense of wonder which was the impetus of my previous post. I reject the reductionist approach to life that boils everything down to cause-effectual relationships. At the same time, I also reject the too often typical, evangelical spiritualization of nearly everything (which I gather may have given rise to my critic's likening me to Chuck Swindoll). We should most certainly be carefully what we attribute to God, if not how.

Those of you who know me well know that the mere mention of blood or simply setting foot in a hospital immediately makes me queasy. Jenni has joked ad-nauseum about how I will likely need more medical attention from the doctors once we're at the hospital to give birth. Birth is a messy, bloody ordeal. I don't speak from experience of course, but I did force myself to watch a birth video last week. Yeah... queasy. At the same time, I cannot imagine a more beautiful, more miraculous, more God-given gift than life. Now, I recognize that we often take our gifts and smash them, that we are prone to act selfishly and destructively out of our own self-hatred, the consequences of which explain why my friend JW has great job security as a family therapist.

Nonetheless, I agree with JW that we have been given choices, brains, natural laws, and from a trinitarian perspective, the Holy Spirit to guide us in parenting. It is a much more layered, complex and holistic enterprise than what I had articulated in my previous post. In fact, the complexity draws me even deeper into wonder and causes me to enter fatherhood with an even greater sense of humility. I ended my previous post with a comment that the journey ahead will be one of faith and not of sight. To elaborate, I do not see faith as blind resignation, but active and imaginative. The book of Hebrews puts it like this, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the assurance of things not yet seen." Hebrews 12:1 NRSV

The journey of faith that I anticipate is one full of hope and vision. It is hopeful in that I believe that our family will create space for self-giving love, that our child(ren) will be given the grace to explore and become whole selves in the context of intimacy and community. It is full of imagination and vision in that I believe that we will find new ways of being as a family. Certainly we will bring both a healthy legacy and some unhealthy baggage from our respective families of origin, but we also have the opportunity to create or recreate what our family will become. I fully expect fatherhood to transform me, as any intimate relationship should. It will transform Jenni's and my marriage, our values, ideas and our ways of being God's beloved. I should hope that I am not simply one who seeks comfort and then likes to set up camp. Rather, I imagine, indeed I hope that parenting will be unsettling. In my experience, it is usually in the places of destabilization that transformation occurs most profoundly.

Thanks JW for inviting me to reflect more deeply on this one!