Thinking About Being Childless

So without getting into too much detail regarding the reproductive difficulties of myself and my spouse, i have been thinking a lot lately about what it would mean to live and die childless. Part of the questioning came from trying to get pregnant and not having much success in the midst of a dearth of friends and family having kids left and right. For a while in the first few years of our marriage it seemed that K and i were going to weddings every other weekend. And now she is telling me about needing to go buy gifts for this shower or another for this mother to be or that. And don’t get me wrong, i am genuinely happy for them and can honestly say that i feel little if any envy for those who have been blessed with little ones. But we haven’t been able to conceive yet and are starting to think that maybe we won’t be able to.

As i was beginning to become aware of this, my biggest fears were two-fold. First, how would this difficulty effect K. How badly did she want a child and to what lengths would she be willing to go to get pregnant? I was rapidly becoming aware that i found many of the fertility options currently available to be personally, how shall i say, aesthetically distasteful. The thought of being tested and poked and prodded and having the most intimate things in my life come under medical scrutiny was beginning to become oppressive to even think about. But, what if K. had to have a baby? I mentioned a second fear and if the first fear could and was resolved by talking to K, this second fear was one that could only be resolved by listening to stillness.

For the better part of a decade, longer than i have known K. for sure, i have (had) been reading a series of novels by Michael O’Brien. I read the first few while i was going through a period of real development and growth. I was discovering that i had a conflict in me, a desire for one kind of life tempered by the kinds of choices that i commonly made and the kinds that i rather thought i ought to be making. I know now that it was time of maturation and nearly everyone goes through it, but at that time i felt rather unique. And O’Brien’s books at that time were among a few different things that stoked a hunger in me to live and breathe differently then i currently did.

O’Brien’s books tend to deal with individuals and their encounters with others, Holy or not so holy. Characters are crafted to be in tremendous soul wrenching doubt or fear mired in self pity and self absorption. They agonize over themselves until they either broke or are broken. Often however, they surrender to what C.S. Lewis would likely call the Weight of Glory and still not feel a whole lot better. They “get right with God” but still have brokeness in their lives, dreams deferred or completely subplanted and uprooted. And without a fault, the salvation the God would send would always come in the form of an oppurtunity to sacrifice for another. To be little and weak within while performing mightily for another without.

This lesson was never one that i got tired of learning. Even as i type this my heart cries out for it to be taught to me again.

Still, returning to my narrative, i was reading the final books in the series. This last sentence in itself is a misnomer as the final books published is really the 2nd or 3rd in the chronolgy of the larger story. But, i had been reading them in order, buying them fairly close to release and then shelving them for sometimes years until i would pick up and read them rapidly and with hunger. This last one, Sophia House was, as i am sure the astute reader can tell, particularly meaningful for me. And here is why.

The main character in the novel is man who is struggling deeply under the weight of the evil done to him and a temptation to respond with a bentness of his own. He is finally brought to a place in his life where his ambitions are dead and he sees himself as the broken, weak wreck that he is. Living in Poland during WWII he runs a bookshop that is always one step from closure. Little money, food, or fuel for heat. God is meeting him regularly through Word and Sacrament but he is still broken. Pawel, the character’s name, is writing letters to Love and Wisdom, letters that are unanswered as they are unsent. And he is despairing that he will ever be able to love and be loved. So the Lord brings David. A Jewish youth on the run from the S.S., he enters Pawel’s store and finds refuge. The arrangement is both bitter and sweet for Pawel and through it the Lord begins to finish his work in Pawel. The relationship culminates in a conversation between the two where this exchange occurs.

“To be a father in the realm of the soul”. Pawel said.  “I would like to be this for you.  may I be this for you?”                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

“Yes Pawel”, David said in a tone of calm deliberation.  “This would be good.” 

 As if standing on a threshold of radical departure, they faced each other without speaking, gazing now into a dimension that seemed for both to be wholly undiscovered.  This sense of embarkation into a a fathomless mystery was in no way daunting; neither was it fraught with emotion.  it was a moment of perfect stillness. 

At last the boys said, “It is a blessed gift to be a son in the realm of the soul.  May I be this for you?”

“Yes”, Pawel nodded.  ( Sophia House Michael O’Brien)

 

Rereading that passage and relflecting on it for this post, i am even more convinced about what i hear God saying to me about being a father. Like Pawel, i am broken and in need of healing more and more everyday. Like Pawel, i long for connection with others and despair in my ability to ever see my hopes for my life come to fruition. Like Pawel, i long for a legacy something that will survive me, sons and daughters of some kind. And what O’Brien’s novel teaches me is that if i am to be given the same kind of son that Pawel is given than i am really okay with that. I may well be delighted by such a gift. To be entrusted with one of God’s little ones who relies on me for safety and support. Someone that needs me not to be strong but to be weak for them, humbled for the Lord’s sake.

It is in realizing this that my second fear is transformed into hope. No more need i fear that i may never become a father. Instead i am beginning to understand that every one of God’s sons and daughters are made into parents whether their children share the same genetic ties or not. In the end it is Christ’s body that lasts anyway.

~ by jephit on April 22, 2008.