Walking with our little one into the dusk on her first trip to FL, to visit family, just before the pandemic hit. Photographed by Almut Furchert.
I first learned to carry Hannah in the hospital, where the nurses kindly showed the new Papa the various tricks of how it is done. You support her weight evenly, ready to contain her if she moves, surround her for protection, and bend into her as though you would draw her into your heart. It is a meditative pose, holding your child as you would a scripture in Lectio Divina. Feeling her warmth and breath, closer communion than I have ever had with another human.
I carried her like this in the rose-dawn light, her first day out of the womb. Almut was blessedly asleep after long labor. She cried and I took her from her bed and carried her, watching alternately her and the sun as it rose on her first day, singing morning prayer. If this is the last memory I have in my life, I believe it will be enough.
For her first year of life, almost every evening I walked her to sleep, pacing back and forth in our small cottage and listening to Lyle Lovett’s “Step inside this House.” In summer I would walk outside with her, sometime through the neighborhood, after the mosquitoes had gone to bed. In her second winter, after we moved to a bigger house, I would strap her into a carrier on my chest, put on a large overcoat with a grey silk monastic hood, and walk with her through the neighborhood like a chilly apparition, slowly singing evening prayer, or listening on my cell phone, still to Lyle Lovett.
Under the hood, we would exchange breath in the warm space protected by my shoulders, the coat, and the hood, her head nestled against my chest. Sometime snow would fall on the hood. Often frost would form on the edges of the coat, fed by our breath. Sometimes she would go quietly to sleep in peace. Other evenings we would both arrive home grumpy after a long walk in the twilight, neither satisfied but both sleepy.
And so I have learned what it is to carry an unexpected, holy gift and to be aware of her, even through the fatigue and grumpiness of everyday life. This is a glimpse, a metaphor, an imperfect image of what it must mean to be a father. Or, if you will, Our Father, which is itself an imperfect image of some deeper loving mystery.
And so today I invite you to take a walk with someone, or some thing, or some dream that you love. You can be the Father to this person or this dream. Perhaps the Father you did not have, cradling the child you were without a father. Be God’s Fatherly arms and care. Carry yourself, your dream, your friend, your spouse, your child. Carry them gently in your heart, leaning into them, sharing the breath — ruach in the Hebrew — that gives you both life and that forms the image of the Father for whom we all yearn. Be gently and graciously aware of the gifts you carry. Ready to respond if it moves, surrounding it for protection, singing a prayer.
This is what I have learned about being a Father. It is one small reflection of the Father who holds us all, walks us all gently to sleep, even into our last and final sleep. Leaning into us. Sharing our breath. Ruach … the breath of life.
Peace to you on this pilgrimage.
Chuck
