When at the hospital for the birth of our son, I remember being unsettled by the fact that much of the medical staff kept referring to me as my wife’s “birthing partner.” This label struck me as deflating the stakes and investment I had (and have) in both my wife and child, and I likelyContinue reading “Two Anecdotes About Family”
Tag Archives: Father
Bequeathed
I’ve heard complaints: why petty Creator would sic a father’s penalty upon the son; penance for the agitatorbut never due to parent’s belov’d spawn. Yet blind to volition is this protest – choices to make imbibed from choices made; the son’s own will drawn from father’s compressed.Elder’s conveyed dictates fledging’s inlaid. My boy, imperfect IContinue reading “Bequeathed”
Out of the Mouths of Babes
For A. J. S. In his Confessions, St. Augustine of Hippo articulates his well-known though questionable understanding of babies: he attributes to them a sinfulness and malice that has caused many readers to accuse the African Bishop of lacking compassion and sensitivity for human infancy. A friend of mine has, however, tried to persuade meContinue reading “Out of the Mouths of Babes”
The Prodigal
Master, betrayed you not your own teachingTo keep our pearls in hand, away from swine?Perhaps you prepared for overreaching—A fault so unable to cause decline. Your gifts, us men trampled into the mud,Falling depraved into darkness profound;Not wholly cleansed even by raging flood,Begging for mere scrap, without any found. Returning home, no sacrifice to give—YouContinue reading “The Prodigal”
Hoping for Clarity 