Tonight I remember something I wrote 5 years ago, about Joseph:
He took on the responsibilities of being the husband without being the husband yet. He took on the responsibilities of being the father, without being the father--yet. He unexpectedly took on the ludicrous role of protector of God.
In the great drama he was not going to be a central character, though he probably expected to be important, and didn't know he would completely vanish from the scene. Mary was to be the archetypal Christian. Joseph was more like John the Baptist: she must increase and I must decrease. Or perhaps like Martha, with the necessary lesser duties.
I imagine Joseph outside the stable with the livestock, keeping an eye on the displaced beasts that panic at the smell of blood, waiting and hearing the pain he cannot protect Mary from. Wondering how he's going to try to raise a prophet and Savior. And now and then wondering how he's going to pay the midwife. For he was a just man.
How would you try to raise a boy you'd been promised was going to "save his people from their sins" ? How do you teach him and what do you have him practice? And can you keep the vision alive through the ordinary years, or will you forget in the daily urgency of making a living, regretting that you had to spend that windfall on an unexpected trip to Egypt?
I was given no such promises about our children, and I'd do many things differently if I had the chance--those daily crises took front and center too often. (I don't know if it would turn out any better, though.) I imagine Joseph at night, remembering the angel and wishing he'd been more patient that afternoon--and wondering how just long it was going to be before his son began to save the people.
Maybe we would have found it easier to do better if God had come to us directly in a dream, though. I like to think that would make an impression on me.
ReplyDeletePapa, I think you needn't worry. Everything I do with the kids I try to model after you. Part of why I try so hard with them, despite them not being mine, is that I see something of you in my roommate and how he aspires to raise his children.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the encouragement.
ReplyDeleteThose kids are lucky, not just to have the native abilities and characters they do, but also in the parent and friend they have.
There's just so much to try to teach or model, and we left a lot out or didn't followed through the way I'd want to.
You know how it is. Summarize dinner table courtesy into easily-remembered rules: one of them is to encourage other people to talk. Quizzing seems to satisfy that rule; we did a little of that ourselves to get them to talk about their days. Was it better to try to engage (by questioning) or to try to model conversation more carefully? I don't know, and don't know if it would have made a difference.