On becoming a parent – and perhaps anything else, too

Becoming a parent is not something that stops—it’s not the work of a moment but the work of a lifetime.  As my own son moves steadily onward, becoming more and more himself but also somehow becoming a new person over and over again, I have to become a constantly new parent.  The shifting relationship that ties us together has to be relearned in order to make room for friends and teachers, interests, needs, demands that weren’t there 6 months ago, never mind in our early lives together.

I’m not one to get wistful about the baby that was but I am sometimes taken aback by the speed and completeness of the change from the tiny little being that fit, head to toe, inside my coat to the small boy that leaps along beside me now, talking nonstop.  I can only imagine the day when he strides along and it’s me needing the extra steps to keep pace to the tall young man at my side—but I know it’s coming.

And I will still be a parent—or rather, I will be still becoming a parent.

Although traditional teachings would have us believe that God is unchanging, I don’t think that can quite be true.  God is unchanging in the sense that God is steadfast, stable, true.  But God must also be change itself, constantly renewing and transforming and growing.

God’s Being must somehow contain Becoming.

In just a few week, Rabbi Rachel Barenblat is coming to Christ Church Cathedral to share her poetry and lead a conversation on Parenthood and the Spiritual Life.  Rachel’s most recent collection, written during her son’s first year, is called Waiting to Unfold.  I love this image but I think , for me, the waiting is over and I am now unfolding (and perhaps Rachel is, too—we can ask her in October!).  But it is not an unfolding that is possible because I was folded up before, rather it is an infinite unfolding out of God’s constant re-creation of me in God’s own image. It is an unfolding into unfolding; becoming into becoming.

It is comforting to know that, as my son becomes and as I become, we are held by the One who contains all becoming.

If you are in Montreal, join us on Saturday, Oct. 12th from 1-4pm for Parenthood and the Spiritual Life.  Childcare is available if you pre-register by contacting me at rwaters@montreal.anglican.caMore info at the event page