For Emma Rose, My Little Ladybug

      The living of life is the most wondrous adventure. It is a sumptuous banquet of experiences, a symphony of visions, a carnival of dreams. It is gazing into a starry sky, holding a lover’s hand, listening to the music of the planets as they swing along their course. It is the taste of cool, spring water and the heat of the sun on a summer day. It is a good book, a delicious meal, a stolen kiss. It is the grandest gift imaginable. It is the ultimate opportunity, the universal prize—it is the chance to live in the world and fill our senses with wonder and our minds with questions and answers and mysteries yet to be explained. It is an adventure to be savored, each day to be lived as if it were the only one, as if minutes were priceless and memories the currency of the gods.
      To have a child is to bestow this gift upon a being that would have otherwise never known its wonders. For the parents, it is not an easy course to embark upon, but it is ultimately a joyful one. There is an endless source of enchantment and glee with a babe in your arms. It is a magical quest whereupon you may witness the moments of first awareness, the first faltering steps, the first semi-formed syllables. Marvel at the reaching out of tiny arms to touch your face, the curious expression at each new flavor on the tongue, the squeals of delight at the slightest surprise. There is no joy greater than these moments of discovery, these flashes of glorious epiphany. Indescribable is the baby’s smile that answers your own silly, loving grin.
      There is much work to be done, of course. You must call upon reserves of patience you never knew you had, and cultivate a sense of sympathy deeper than the seas. And there will be moments of distress, as well, so that new parents should not expect only rosy days. At each stage of this new being’s life there will be rewards and challenges, and both must be bourne with moderation and compassion. That is all well, though, because the state of parenthood should not be entered into for the benefit of the parents. Yes, parents receive amazing joy at the hands of their little ones, and wonderful memories beyond count. But their will also be pain, heartache and sorrow. There will be conflicts. There will be disagreements, disappointments, maybe even a nasty fight now and then, all natural events as this new person struggles to establish their identity. So it must be clearly understood by the would-be mother and father that parenthood is a two-edged sword—all you can do is hope that you are fortunate enough to receive more of the joy than the sorrow, more happiness than pain. But if you are going to enjoy the immeasurable happiness that comes with having a child, then you must be willing to bear the difficulties that accompany them as well.
      I repeat that parenthood should not be entered into for the benefit of the parents. Parenthood is not truly for the parents, after all. It is a magnificent gift to the baby, this tiny creature that finds itself suddenly out in the world, seeing, smelling, touching things; finding its first mandalas in the nipple which gives it sustenance and in the loving stare of its mother’s eyes; tasting milk and startling at sounds; struggling to focus on movement and light, on the sun coming in through the window and the fan spinning idly on the ceiling. Everything is new, everything is wondrous. Amazement can be found in every glance around the room, and the parents are as gods, creators beyond comprehension, that through the years will grow more real, more concrete, more tangible to the child’s mind. Lessons learned will gradually build themselves into a cohesive personality. Likes and dislikes will develop, memories will glow with vibrant strength, and a psyche will evolve into a glorious vehicle upon which to ride the twists and turns of life.
      How stable the ride, and how happy the attendant spirit will be, depends entirely on the psychological structure of the developing child. While certainly not all future tendancies and behaviors are set in stone early on in life, what is firmly established, and very difficult—although not impossible—to overcome, is the pattern of reaction to external experiences. That is to say, we are not necessarily tied to bad behaviors by early experiences, but it is in these early moments when we learn the patterns of perception and analysis through which to process and assess the world around us. We may not set specific behavior in stone, but we do more or less set the ability to handle the experiences of life. It is the opportunity to experience all these things that we bestow when we bring a baby into the world, and yes, of course, this baby will also experience the difficulties of life as well. To facilitate this process we must raise the child as best we can, to point it in the direction of wisdom and moderation and strength. This we do through attention and patience, through empathy and compassion.
      Most parents want their child to be handsome or beautiful, to be smart, to be rich—in other words, to possess and attain all the touchstones that our society holds as the standards of success and happiness. But in this desire we must be cautious, we must keep in mind the ancient adage that warns, “Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.” If we really think about these worldly pursuits that we are all so involved in to one degree or another, we may come to a surprising realization. We struggle for wealth, we long for beauty, we crave a million things that we don’t possess, and all for what? It is not for the perfect waistline itself, nor for the dollars in the checking account, that we spend our every waking moment in a struggle for more. Instead, it is all in a desparate search for happiness, for fulfillment, that we sacrifice our valuable time on this earth in the mistaken belief that these things will bestow joy upon our hungry souls. But take a moment to think about all the breathtakingly perfect faces out there, all the ninety-eight pound models, all the wealthy business magnates, the powerful politicians, and you will find not a sea of happiness, but rather a swamp of discontent. The struggle for happiness through such superficial, material means is doomed to failure because it is a process of continual comparison against an ever-receding standard. There will always be someone more beautiful, someone wealthier or more powerful. So instead, what we must teach our children is to be happy with themselves, to see the beauty of the world, to seek after what pleases them, and to be mindful of others. With this crucial combination of attributes anything can be achieved, and the worst of our society’s disillusions can be avoided.
      But it is crucial for a new parent to understand that their child, whether baby, teenager or adult, must be allowed to be their own person, sentient and self-sufficient unto themselves. The parents must not expect a mental clone of their own thoughts, someone to mindlessly repeat their beliefs and follow their dogmas. If that is all your child can do then you have severely limited his or her potential. You must value their differences, for in those differences you may see their spiritual growth, you can observe their own thoughts and ideas manifesting themselves in the world. If our thoughts and our actions spin the web of an intricate mandala across our lives, then we can see what a waste of potential it would be if our children’s mandalas developed into thoughtless copies of our own. It would be an affront to the amazing, endless variety of the universe. If every snowflake were the same, every spiderweb, every face and every dream, what a terrible loss it would be for the world.
      As scary as the prospect of having a child can be, with its attendant labors and concerns, the only thing I can imagine that would be even more frightening is the thought of having gone through life never knowing the incomparable joys that my baby has granted me. The enterprise of parenthood is as challenging as it is rewarding, but in the end one will find that the joy far overshadows the fear.
      Another fascinating spiritual development I’ve experienced as a result of having a child is a sudden and impressive growth of my acceptance of and compassion for others. When I look at my beautiful baby, so happy and clever and just so overwhelmingly cute, it’s all I can do not to eat her right up. I think about Emma, and I know that when she grows up there will probably be people that will become angry with her at some point, they might dislike her or even hold a grudge against her, and I just think that if those angry future people could only see her now, in this perfect, innocent state, all of their bad feelings would dissipate like a fog with the rising of the sun. And then I realize that every single person I encounter every day was once as pure and innocent and beautiful as my baby is, and if that’s true, then everyone I contact every day is entitled to the same veneration I bestow upon my own precious daughter.  Everyone of us, after all, is somebody’s son or daughter or loved one, and everyone is as deserving of our compassion, our mercy and our appreciation as my sweet baby is. We are, every one of us, special and unique, and in our hearts as beautiful as a newborn babe.
      To give life to a person is to bestow upon them grand potential, wondrous opportunity. It is a chance to live and love and enjoy the sweet inifinities of the world around us. It is opening a door in the impenetrable wall of being, reaching through, and pulling this newborn babe kicking and screaming into existence. It is a gift, also, to the universe, because every person is an instrument in the symphony of the stars, a brilliant point in the cosmic mandala. Our lives weave in and out of each others’ in a kalidoscopic display of firework cause and effect. We touch our fingertips to the surface of reality and a ripple forms and waves and emanates far beyond the scope of our vision. Inevitably, each new person will leave the universe different than before they arrived, changed in ways that are wonderful and impossible to predict. Each new life is a powerhouse of such potential—for adventure, excitement and wonder; for passion and compassion and love. A baby is the epitome of this amazing potential, born of our love, our compassion, and the boundless energy of the human spirit.