Dear Dave

  Thoughts for Good Friday

I saw the universe in a cup of coffee, reflected light twinkling in the swirling black. I wondered at the vastness of creation and the care with which it was made.

I felt warm and comforted.

I saw beauty in a cherry tree, a canopy of blossom rippling in the breeze. I marvelled at the complexity of life and smiled at the sunshine on my face.

I felt warm and comforted.

I saw your glory in a stormy sky, power and provision swirling together in the wind and rain. I looked out my window and knew the safety of your protection.

I felt warm and comforted.

But it could not last...

I was in a forest, rough bark scraping at my fingers as I fought my way through the clinging darkness. I stumbled into a clearing and peered up to find the heavens wide and still, a thousand stars staring down at me from a void which went on forever.

And I was cold and terrified.

Then I remembered the tears you shed at the death of a friend.
I remembered the uncertainty which gripped you as you waited to be betrayed.
And I remembered the hard wood onto which you were nailed.

I remembered the coffee and the cherry tree and the rain against my window.
I remembered all that I am and all that I have been.

And I was still cold and frightened...
But I knew that I was not alone.

Labels: christianity, depression

  11:10 AM - Permanent Link - 0 comments - Post comment - Links to this post

  That would be an ecumenical question...

Dear Dave,

When this housedad existence is over, all the kids are grown up and I no longer have any purpose in life, I'll probably have to find a job or something. By that point, of course, I will be a withered husk of my former self with out-dated qualifications and atrophied skills. On paper, my employability will be severely compromised. I'm not too worried, though. If I can blag my way to an interview, then I should be fine. I'll have had years of practice answering unexpected and awkward questions in high pressure situations. Nothing will phase me. After all, what could compete with being asked (loudly) on the bus, 'Why is that man so fat?' or being interrogated in the playground as to how exactly the baby-seeds get from the daddy to the mummy? In comparison, sitting in an office and having to answer some nonsense about what I can contribute should be a breeze. I'm reasonably confident of talking my way into senior management within a couple of weeks. That, or PR rep for British Nuclear Fuels, anyway.

Yep, I have to deal with difficult questions all the time. Lewis has an insatiable thirst for knowledge, no desire to think things through for himself and a complete lack of tact. Fraser is becoming intrigued by the mechanical details of baby production. Marie, meanwhile, has taken an interest in theology.

Fraser was the same at her age, asking all kinds of questions like 'Where is God?', 'What's he made of?' and 'Will I get to play computer games in heaven?' We were impressed until we realised that he was timing these questions at twenty-eight minutes past seven in the evening and his main aim was to avoid going to bed. This was still impressive in its own way but nowhere near as gratifying. Marie, however, seems to be looking more for a good doctrinal debate. She's equally uninterested in what we have to tell her but is keen to share her own theories with us.

Recently, she's been wandering around with a pink, sparkly teddy bear. "This is my toy Jesus," she says, holding it out in front of her and then letting go. "She likes being dropped."

Strangely, she doesn't get to take this particular bear to church.


The Messiah (as imagined by a three-year-old girl).

Then she picks up the bear again and says, "The real Jesus is inside." It's hard to disagree, since, technically, God is everywhere.

Well almost everywhere, apparently:

Sarah is taking the boys to Aberdeen for the weekend soon. Marie isn't too thrilled at the prospect of staying home with me. She demonstrated this to Sarah the other day. "God is here! He's in our house!" Marie shouted excitedly. Then her eyes narrowed and she muttered, "When you go to Aberdeen, he won't be there. He's going to stay here with me."

Does this say more about her understanding of God, I wonder, or about her knowledge of Aberdeen?

Hmmm... That's maybe one question I won't answer...

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

Labels: children, christianity

  9:30 AM - Permanent Link - 0 comments - Post comment - Links to this post

  Hopes and fears

Dear Dave,

Merry Christmas! Well, almost... Christmas seems to have been going on for three weeks already this year. The kids are exhausted from a constant stream of parties and relatives and Santas. I'm somewhat confused the actual day hasn't quite arrived yet.

That said, I'm putting off wrapping a big pile of presents by writing to you.

Still, I'm looking forward to singing plenty of carols in the next couple of days. There's the Christmas Eve Christingle service tomorrow. (Forget offering hope, love and forgiveness - the Christingle is where we entice families with young children into the building with promises of oranges and sweets.) Then, of course, there'll be more carols on Christmas Day. I like them because most of them have decent tunes that even tone deaf people like me can just about manage to belt out.

We got a bit of a taster at church today with Oh, little town of Bethlehem:

Oh, little town of Bethlehem,
How still we see thee lie.
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep,
The silent stars go by.
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The ever-lasting light.
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight.

It's probably my favourite carol. ...The hopes and fears of all the years... That line always stirs up emotions and usually makes me think about God becoming human to show us how to live, to fix our relationship with him and to give us a glimpse of the world beyond.

Today, however, my mind turned elsewhere.

Spare a thought for Joseph.

He'd had to live through months of gossip, thanks to the wedding date and due date not entirely adding up. That had been followed by a lengthy trek with a heavily pregnant wife in order to register for a census which was almost certainly merely an excuse to stiff him with a hefty tax bill. Then he'd failed in his first task as a dad - finding somewhere decent for his child to be born. (This isn't normally the first task, but he'd missed out on the usual one and that was a whole different issue entirely...)

So he finds himself in the stable, surrounded by animals. He's finally managed to get the rowdy shepherds out the door, along with all the townsfolk made curious by the talk of angels and saviours. Mary is passed out from exhaustion in the corner. He wouldn't mind joining her. He wouldn't mind just going and lying down beside her and giving her a cuddle.

If only the little Lord Jesus would flipping lay down his sweet head.

No crying he makes? Yeah, right. Newborn babies are usually pretty frustrated and irritated. This one has recently gone from holding the whole world in his hands to not being able to find his own thumb without sticking it in his eye. That's one very frustrated and irritated baby.

Chances of a silent night: slim.

So Joseph sits there, bleary-eyed, rocking the baby in his arms and finally has the opportunity to wonder what he's got himself into. He suddenly realises he's a dad. Never mind the dreams and prophecies, he has a tiny life to take care of. A son! A son to teach and love, to provide for and protect. Terror and pride mix together at the prospect.

...The hopes and fears of all the years...

At that moment, he feels the truth of those words more than anyone.

Then he discovers his sleeve is warm and wet. He sighs and starts hunting around for a few more swaddling clothes. It's going to be a long night...

Best wishes to all your family. Have a great Christmas. I'd better go wrap those presents.

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

PS Did you ever read the somewhat unorthodox nativity play I sent? If you haven't, then I can't think of a better time.

Labels: christianity, christmas

  11:00 PM - Permanent Link - 2 comments - Post comment - Links to this post

  Death to Santa

Dear Dave,

Merry Christmas!

I know it's a little early but I thought I'd better get in there quick before you go to the shopping centre, stumble into a brightly decorated fir tree which wasn't there last week and Santa sets his elves on you. Also, since Squiggly still hasn't shown up, you might want to rush out and buy all your gifts now while you have the chance. The first three months of having two children will disappear in the blink of an eye and a mountain of laundry. Or, in other words, if Squiggly is born today, you'll wake up tomorrow to find it's the day after Boxing Day.

Sam will be annoyed you forgot to get him anything.

What are your plans for this Christmas, by the way? Now Sam's three, he'll have much more of a clue what's going on. You'll be able to get him properly wound up with anticipation and excitement. You'll also have to decide what you're doing about the fat, cheery bloke in the red suit.

The one advantage of Marie not having got a place at nursery yet is that, at least this year, we won't be the deviant parents who 'don't do Santa'. Oddly, not wanting to lie to our children about flying reindeer and chimney-based parcel delivery systems, tends to mark us out as dangerously eccentric. Santa is apparently part of the 'magic' of Christmas and, as it happens, a very useful mind control device. ('Be good, children... or Santa won't bring you any presents. Remember, he's watching you all the time. His elves are everywhere... Yes, even there...')

Quite what the parents from different cultural and religious heritages make of it all, I've no idea. Though I presume they get away much more easily with not joining in. It's a strange quirk of the multi-cultural society. Everyone's worried about contradicting Muslims and Hindus but I'm pretty sure they'd be quite up for some spirited religious debate on the nature of God. We could totally disagree and no one would take offense. After all, only by discussion, can any of us get closer to the truth.

If, however, I were to loudly say, 'But Santa doesn't exist,' as the kids were coming out, I'd get stoned by all the agnostics. (Well, glared at, anyway).

It's a shame that the real Christmas story has become so devoid of awe and wonder that the whole Santa thing has had to be built up to add 'magic' to the day. It's not even like the kids are that fussed - a stack of presents is a stack of presents and they're full of anticipation no matter how it's due to appear.

We'd rather not bother with all the Santa subterfuge, thank you very much, but it's an uphill struggle some of the time. When Lewis was three and a half, nursery went into Santa in such a big way, he simply would not believe that the whole thing was just pretend. We tried being subtle about it so he wouldn't go blurting out the truth to all his friends and make us plenty of enemies but, in the end, we had to tell him point-blank over and over and he still wasn't having any of it:

I was woken at quarter past two on Christmas morning by the sound of crying. Although we don't go in for the whole charade, we do still leave out stockings for the kids. Lewis had got up and opened his. Except he'd totally failed to see the stocking at the end of his own bed and had taken the one from beside the cot on the other side of the room. He was sitting on the stairs, bawling his eyes out. As I approached, he held up a pair of pink baby slippers and wailed, 'Santa brought me the wrong presents!' He was heart-broken until I pointed out that it just might be possible he'd opened Marie's stocking by mistake. Somehow, the thought had never crossed his mind. (Perhaps the fact that it was quarter past two in the morning had something to do with it...) I calmed him down and watched him open his actual stocking and then we both went back to bed. It was the start of a very long day.

(This was, in fact, only the second worst Christmas stocking disaster I've ever had. When I was nineteen, home for the holidays and fairly certain I shouldn't expect sleigh-bells, Santa tried to kill me. He lay a stocking directly across the threshold of my bedroom door. I went to the toilet in the middle of the night, tripped over the flipping thing and nearly went head-first down the stairs. I was not impressed. I was even less impressed when, on further investigation, I discovered the stocking contained a tangerine, a bag of nuts and a car cleaning kit. I didn't even have a car. Though, now I think about it, my parents had a car that I borrowed a lot. Hmmm...)

Yeah, it's impossible to avoid Santa entirely but Sarah and I want the kids to trust us. Lying through our teeth about rotund pensioners sneaking into the house in the dead of night to put satsumas in their socks doesn't really seem to be the way to go about that. Call us eccentric, but there you go.

Just something to think about. Then again, your eyes probably glazed over at the first mention of Christmas. I know it's months to go yet but spare a thought for all the shop assistants who'll be subjected to a looped CD of festive hits from now until New Year. Be gentle with them.

Oh, and another sign Christmas is fast approaching? The auditions for nativity plays are already in full swing. I'm pushing for our church to put on something slightly different this year but I'm told it doesn't have enough cute angels in it. (We have the costumes, you see). Ho, well.

Now go tell Squiggly to hurry up.

Yours in a winter wonderland,

Ed.

PS Microsoft returned my Xbox 360 the other day. Well, actually, they sent me a brand new one - which was a bonus. Unfortunately, I've had to dismantle my safe place again because the tradesmen reckoned it was possible they might turn up to fix the water damage this week.

I now have two 360s but nowhere to play them. Irritating.

Labels: children, christianity, christmas

  10:00 AM - Permanent Link - 0 comments - Post comment - Links to this post

  A new dawn

Dear Dave,

Happy Easter!

I had planned on writing about this being a special Easter for me. Things have been going pretty well lately. I've had several months of decent sleep. This correspondence has given me a bit of purpose outside of direct parental action. The days are getting longer. An end to seven years of nappies looks like a possibility. Sunday is here. The stone has been rolled away from the entrance to the tomb. Death is defeated. God is with us! It all feels like a new beginning...

That's what I'd been planning to write, anyway. Then I caught a stinking cold, the kids caught it too, the potty-training led to a household sock shortage and I felt so tired that I dozed off in a softplay. I leant against a foam shape and rested my eyes for a moment. The next I knew, I was dreaming of a nightmare world of primary colours where small children roam free and there is an ever-present danger of drowning in a pit full of plastic balls. I awoke to a reality that was very similar except a five-year-old that I had never seen before was barking at me in a Germanic language and prodding me with an enormous padded snail. For one hazy, flu-filled moment I thought I had fallen into a psychology experiment, a foreign arts film or, worst-case scenario, a painting by Edvard Munch. It wasn't good. I rounded up my children and headed home.

Since then, I've been muddling along as best I can until I'm well, looking to just get through each day without my daughter leaking too much.

Marie gives me various indicators that everything is not going entirely to plan:

• She points out the obvious. "Your socks wet, Daddy!"
• She exclaims, "Pee!" as if wondering where it came from and what it's doing in her socks.
• She lets out an, "Oh, no," giving the impression she's forgotten to pay her Visa bill this month. Or remembered that she has no clean socks left.
• She mutters, "I go to toilet. I not go in shower." This thought is, of course, akin to shutting the stable door after the horse has urinated (in its socks).
• She smiles to herself and then wiggles her bottom as if settling down into a nice warm cushion. Mmmmmm. Squishy... (Doesn't require fresh socks, at least).
• She points at the pee streaming out her shoes.

It's a long time since a toxic spill around the house was a disaster or even particularly unpleasant but cleaning it up is an effort I could do without when I'm ill. Quite often when I tell people that I'm a housedad they ask me something along the lines of, "So you enjoy that then?" There's pressure to justify my existence by saying, "Yes, it's fantastic. It's a fulfilling roller-coaster ride of discovery, challenge, fun and hugs. I'd recommend it to anyone." To say anything else might be to confirm their suspicion that a stay at home dad is against all the laws of God and man. To suggest that children can be ungrateful, hard work and irritating can cause shock and outrage. The truth is, though, that there are days in any job when things could be better. Being ill, dealing with ill children through the night and then trying to hold it all together during the day isn't challenging - it's exhausting.

This time, the trauma should be over quickly, however. A day or two, and we'll all be well. Another week or so and Marie will have the idea. Then the changing unit can go and there'll be room for me to have a desk again - somewhere for me to sneak off to in order to write, surf and play Half-Life. Hurrah!

There have been times in the past few years, though, when it has seemed like the cloud would never pass. It was like the despair of a perpetual Good Friday. I went months at a time without a proper night of sleep. I had to cope with a wife with post-natal depression. I had to deal with depression myself. I couldn't see an end to it. Only trusting to God that there would be an end, kept me getting out of bed.

Being a housedad is fantastic. It is a fulfilling roller-coaster ride of discovery, challenge, fun and hugs. But I'd never recommend it to everyone. Being a dad, never mind a housedad, can be tough. We have to be prepared to admit that, talk to those around us and get support when we need it. Just knowing we're not alone can be a great help. Take care of yourself, OK?

All things considered and fleeting set-backs aside, this is still a special Easter for me. The issues I face as a parent may well become more difficult as the kids get older but a lot of the hard graft is past. (Oh, goodness, decent sleep makes so much difference!) I'll get more and more time and space to myself. I'll have some energy to spare. I might even have dry socks. Wouldn't that be great?

All the best to the family. You are in our thoughts and prayers.

Deep peace of the running wave to you.
Deep peace of the flowing air to you.
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you.
Deep peace of the shining stars to you.
Deep peace from the Son of Peace to you.
This Easter and always...

Yours in a woman's world,

Ed.

Labels: children, christianity, depression, housedad

  11:00 AM - Permanent Link - 0 comments - Post comment - Links to this post