Doing Our Duty
A Reframing
Parenting is hard work; so hard that there are many times we simply grit our teeth to get through the moment. Whether it’s a toddler’s tantrum, a tween’s hormones, or a teenager’s experiments with independence and agency, it is simply a fact there are times when doing the right thing feels like a duty, an obligation, something God requires of us.
This is all wrong.
He has shown you, O man, what is good;
And what does the Lord require of you
But to do justly,
To love mercy,
And to walk humbly with your God?
~Micah 6:8
You see, God does not require us to “be parents”. It is not our duty, our obligation to have children, to make them be a certain way. Instead, the Lord gives us the privilege of helping to raise other human beings — a privilege to be exercised with justice, mercy and humility.
We are specks of dust in the grand scheme of the universe, and yet Christ entrusts us with the care of living icons, sealed with the breath of life. We get to watch them grow, help them through their mistakes and missteps, comfort their sadness, rejoice in their victories. We get to soothe the struggling toddler, help the tween understand her changing body, and scaffold the fledgling flights of our teens.
What a privilege!
Do you forget how short life is? I do. I think about it all of the time, but still, every day there are moments I catch myself forgetting how brief this window of earthly life is. I act stupidly, as if there are endless days to rectify my mistakes and make good on promises. There are not, of course; there’s just not enough time, folks. What good we know to do, we must get up and do it — right now.
Let us pour ourselves out. For our children, our spouses, our parents and siblings and friends. They are all a privilege! And if we believe what we say we believe, pouring our hearts out will only make more room for the Spirit to fill us back up again so that our cups overflow. We get to have companions on this wacky, hurtling journey around the sun! We can love them with abandon!
Fans of speculative fiction and J.R.R. Tolkien will recognize the idea of “sub-creation,” that our playful creativity is a fractal of God’s creation ex nihilo. Far more than any artistic endeavor, though, is the sub-creation involved in raising children; for in this endeavor, God takes our hands in His, saying “See! This is how it’s done!” He guides the growth of the young shoot through our own shaky and willing hands, like a teacher holding the hand of a child learning to print his letters. We are all of us sub-creators, unless we refuse this gift and become sub-destroyers. God forbid!
Lately, if my day is going rough, I simply say to myself, “What a privilege!” and this reframing flips my perception on its head. Drudgery, after all, is much a state of mind, and where mere mortals see toil and grind, monks see an opportunity for prayer, another day to practice repentance, another unearned gift in a moment of existence. In the monastery of parenthood, we can add to that the joy of being invited to participate in the growth of new persons from their very smallest moments.
What a privilege!
P.S. Do you ever read the Message Bible? Look at Micah 6:8 again:
But he’s already made it plain how to live, what to do,
what God is looking for in men and women.
It’s quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor,
be compassionate and loyal in your love,
And don’t take yourself too seriously—
take God seriously.