Peeking on Paradise
One of the hardest learned lessons of fatherhood then vs now is the allocation of time and attention to the new addition. As I’ve stated in the past it can’t be wholly blamed on us, the younger fathers, as we’re often struggling to provide. Sometimes even to survive. Life rushes by and before you know it teens are inhabiting the same space where a week ago a toddler stood.
A perfect example of giving yourself to this time, to being in a moment with your child, occurred this week. In church of all places. I cannot remember the last time I entered a church that wasn’t business related.
It obviously wasn’t my first time in church. I’ve been in hundreds, if not thousands, for work purposes, as mentioned, and personal, obviously. And if I’m blatantly honest, I avoid weddings and funerals with the ferocity of a cat avoiding baths. It was, however, a family event and it’s important to support family.
And while it wasn’t my first time, it was evident from the moment we exited the car that it was the little one’s first time in a church. Heeding my own advice from previous posts, I decided to let her lead and followed her desire to explore. A little pointed finger guiding us to the church and through the door to a world she’d never explored.
From statue to stained glass, from pew to pulpit, from priest to parishioner we bounced. A whirlwind tour with a guide who spoke no language other than wonder. Little gurgles and boops and beeps and other noises echoing through the hushed space.
Throughout the service she bounced from lap to lap, full of interest and excitement for what was going on. Excepting a brief nap, her little finger never ceased to find something new to show us, each item a revelation, each discovery a source of wonder and curiosity. Her little brown eyes taking in everything but doubtless not understanding what she was witnessing.
Photographers swirled around, flashbulbs popping, musicians played tunes on guitars and sang songs to the couple, the priest led a congregation and the congregation responded. The bride and groom standing and kneeling front and center renewing their vows. Everyone focused on their part, their task or their role. Everyone conscious of the reason for the occasion and the joy of it, but none so attuned to the moment as the little one.
There was a moment in which her mother held her, both of them bathed in sunlight streaming through a stained glass window, both content and happy and in the joy of the moment. Glowing, you might say, in this late afternoon aura. It’s difficult to describe yet very vivid in my memory. It’s one of those moments I’ll carry to my beyond. I turned and locked eyes with the little one and for a brief moment the emotion of the moment got me. If ever there was a more beautiful moment, I’m not sure what it would be.
My beliefs on religion and God are irrelevant, for they are personal. They’re the product of my experiences and a life lived imperfectly in a world gone sideways. And I’m certainly not foolish enough to believe I’ve got it all figured out, especially in that realm.
What I do know, is that in rare moments in my life I’ve felt something. Each time I held my newborn child, certainly, and various moments like this throughout their lives, when I surrender my attention to them and follow them into the wonder and awesomeness of this world. When just the right song comes on in just the right moment. When we walk quietly holding the hand of someone we love. It’s moments so fleeting and so fragile that to focus on them causes them to disappear into the ether from which they sprang.
In that moment, all her awe, all her wonder, all her innocence and newness was mine. I got to feel it. I allowed myself to become part of the moment instead of concerning myself OF my part in it and in doing so became a part of something beyond myself. Her little fingers had guided us throughout the property, slowly and unknowingly drawing me into her little spell, immersing me in her world until, for the briefest of moments, swaddled in her mothers arms and grinning her knowing little toothy smile, she reached up and parted the curtains and gave me a peek of heaven.
And perhaps, therein lies a lesson. You can’t go to ‘it’. Whatever you consider ‘it’ to be. Men have searched the world until there exists no part of the world we don’t know. We’ve searched the skies and the seas and turned our eyes to the universe and beyond trying to find ‘it’.
But, if we’re quiet enough, attentive enough, and allow, ‘it’ comes to us. They say evil comes in many forms, and that is undoubtedly true.
Who’s to say that heaven can’t come cloaked in a lacy 15m dress, munching on cheerios and pointing the way?
