Fatherhood In Our Times
The below is a post I left at First Things magazine in response to this piece.
In approximately one month, I will be a first time father at the age of 31.
While not old, I am certainly older than many, perhaps most, first time fathers. I approach this with both excitement and trepidation. I have always been an inwardly focused person, not enamoured of material things, but enamoured of the internal life of the mind and its cultivation.
I have fears that I will lose this and no longer be able to continue in my own process of growth and exploration. How can one converse with the greatest minds if you cannot sleep and escape the cries of an infant?
My hope, however, is that this will also be a learning experience that will teach not only me, but my child. I look very much forward to teaching them, especially in a world that has lost touch with so much of its own heritage. I believe this will be my greatest gift to my child and, to me, this is an indescribable source of excitement.
So I approach this task, I pray, with the right mixture of humility and brazeness. I hope that I can bestow something permanent, because transience doesn't interest me and I hope shall not interest my child. I hope to instill a passion for things of "greatness" and to be worthy of a child's admiration up to and including their own rendezvous parenthood. This despite the effects of a culture that seems fated to unhesitatingly embrace the transcience and emptiness of materialism and the ennervation of spirit.
In approximately one month, I will be a first time father at the age of 31.
While not old, I am certainly older than many, perhaps most, first time fathers. I approach this with both excitement and trepidation. I have always been an inwardly focused person, not enamoured of material things, but enamoured of the internal life of the mind and its cultivation.
I have fears that I will lose this and no longer be able to continue in my own process of growth and exploration. How can one converse with the greatest minds if you cannot sleep and escape the cries of an infant?
My hope, however, is that this will also be a learning experience that will teach not only me, but my child. I look very much forward to teaching them, especially in a world that has lost touch with so much of its own heritage. I believe this will be my greatest gift to my child and, to me, this is an indescribable source of excitement.
So I approach this task, I pray, with the right mixture of humility and brazeness. I hope that I can bestow something permanent, because transience doesn't interest me and I hope shall not interest my child. I hope to instill a passion for things of "greatness" and to be worthy of a child's admiration up to and including their own rendezvous parenthood. This despite the effects of a culture that seems fated to unhesitatingly embrace the transcience and emptiness of materialism and the ennervation of spirit.
Posted by Greg R Lawson at 12/15/2011 4:46 PM 
Categories: Fatherhood Culture
Tags: Fatherhood Culture
Categories: Fatherhood Culture
Tags: Fatherhood Culture
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