Post 6: Day 15

It’s hard to believe that only 2 weeks have gone by since S first breathed NYC air. Both the wife and I feel like we’ve been doing this for years. Overall, it seems as though we’ve been on the fortunate side as first-time parents- S eats quite well (like his father), he’s been sleeping up to 4 hours at a time during the night, and he pees and poops at appropriate intervals. Of course, I’m quite certain that tonight will be the night that S awakes every hour crying inconsolably. But the unexpected downsides have been pretty manageable so far, and life has resumed some measure of normalcy.

One of the pleasant surprises in the first two weeks has been the outpouring of affection from the extended community of friends and family to the arrival of S. This is to be somewhat expected given the collective years of waiting, but still, there’s something incredibly touching about some of the reactions we’ve seen. Foremost on my mind is my three nieces, age 10, 8, and 5. I get emails from the oldest one saying things like, “Please send me more pictures of your new baby- he’s soooooo cute. I want to put him on my screensaver for my ipod touch.” My sister tells me that they forward pictures to their friends, and they’re super proud of the arrival of their new cousin. For some reason, I had feared the opposite- I was even concerned that they might feel a certain cousin rivalry- that their auntie and uncle in NYC might not pay as much attention to them now that they have one of their own kids.

Though quite young, my sense is they too went on a journey where they passed through some liminal spaces. My nieces have basically been praying for us to have a baby- well, seemingly ever since their parents taught them the concept of prayer. The final words uttered before every meal we’ve ever had together was, “And please God help uncle and auntie have a baby”. I know the years of waiting left them confused- at one point, they asked my sister, “Why is it that some families have lots of babies, and God won’t give uncle and auntie even one?” I’m not sure how their mom responded to this, but I can’t imagine any logical attempt to answer the question being satisfactory. Alas, during their trip to NYC this past summer, the oldest one who’s a bit of a ham took my iPhone4 and began videotaping her random thoughts and musings as she strolled around the loft. There’s this one priceless moment where she stumbles upon pictures from the sonogram on the coffee table and she exclaims to her audience, “Look! here are pictures of the baby that we’ve been praying for!!!” I suppose part of their joy must come from this childlike sense that the God of the Universe heard their prayers and took the time to answer them. At the same time, the road was marked with enough hardship and disappointment over the years to give them a glimpse of what a mature, circumstance-invariant faith might look like in their own future.

I think one of the things I look most forward to in fatherhood is walking with S and teaching him how to navigate the inevitable disappointments in life. Perhaps more than anything else, I want to instill in him a heart of thankfulness and appreciation for all things- no matter how broken or messed up things appear to be both in his world and the broader world. I recognize that I’m fighting a massive headwind as cynicism/nihilism are the hallmarks of our culture. If we continue to raise him in NYC, he will no doubt be surrounded by people who were so aptly described by Louis CK in his “Everything is Amazing and Nobody’s Happy” rant on Conan several years ago. But my daily prayer when I peer into S’s eyes each day as I hold him is that he would begin to develop an ability to hear God’s voice, feel His Presence, and commune with Him as a friend. This is truly the only effective antidote that I’m aware of to resist the temptation to develop a negative worldview. I would love for him to own the great prayer captured in Habakkuk 3:17

“Though the fig tree does not bud, and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD”

S- it is this kind of faith from your parents and others that brought about your physical life- and this same faith is the key to the abundant life as promised in John 10:10.