Pax Plena

Tag: Fatherhood

  • Live a Life Without Fear

    This past week marked the seventh anniversary of my divorce. It’s a topic that I’ve alluded to on these pages before, but I’m not sure that I’ve ever directly addressed it.

    I don’t think the details are very interesting, although they are, admittedly, what most folks fixate on. In some ways I get this. We humans are a curious lot. As a culture, we tend to gravitate towards the details of other peoples lives in a way that almost seems baked into our DNA. Consider the prevalence of reality TV. Our society revels in the details of other peoples lives – from how they date, to the homes they buy, and even to how obese they are. Why we care, I’m not sure. But we damn sure love the details.

    For my life, I think the details of a relationship matter less than one or two critical moments along the way. While it’s true that the little things tend to add up and drive the vicissitudes of life forward, I think that at the end of every relationship there’s a bit of a time wound that leads to the relationship’s end. This wound boils down to a single, decisive moment. A personal rubicon. Where going forward, the relationship is no more. And looking back, it is all that the relationship ever was. A wound in time for the aggrieved, and perhaps a moment of celebration for those making a break. Or some combination of the two.

    For me, this moment is forever etched in my mind. I recall the hurt. It wasn’t my choice. It sent me spiraling into frenzy of depression and drinking (something I’ve only recently addressed). I also recall the loneliness and the fear. It was paralyzing. Would I see my son? Would I be a part of his life? Would he grow up calling my ex’s new husband Dad? (The very thought of this made me wretch.) At my age, would I ever find love again? How would I recover from the financial damage done after seven years of life lived together?

    I have answers to some of these questions now. Some I don’t. I still haven’t found love and I just hit 40, so the odds aren’t necessarily in my favor to borrow from the Hunger Games. But if I could go back and chat with the me of seven years ago, I would sit down and tell him, “Dude. Calm the eff down. It gets better.” Not necessarily right away. But it does.

    As a part of my own reflection, and mindfulness, I have lately opted to read a chapter of the Bible each day. I made it up to the book of Joshua before I gave up on reading the Bible in a year. But I figure I can at least read a chapter of the Bible a day. For some, I know that religion is anachronistic and passé. I’ve never felt that way. I find great comfort in faith but I get that your mileage may vary.

    Anyway, I read Joshua chapter one the other day. There, God reaffirms the promise to guide Moses, and strikes it afresh with Joshua. As Israel stands poised on the banks of the Jordan to enter the “promised land,” God once again states his intent to remain a bulwark to Joshua and Israel.

    Therefore shall not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life: As I was with Moses, so I will be with thee: I will not fail thee nor forsake thee.”

    – Joshua 1.5

    God further exhorts Joshua to be strong and have courage. An important bit of advice, seeing as Joshua was essentially taking the helm of leadership over the entire Nation of Israel.

    Be not dismayed: for the Lord they God is with thee withersoever thou goest.

    – Joshua 1.9

    The link I make between the words of God to Joshua and my own experience with my divorce is that the message could easily have been given by God to me – but for the fact that, at the time, I had no truck for hearing anything from God – let alone actually believing the sentiment of the message itself.

    But it was true. What came to pass, ultimately “did not stand.” These many years later, I have not reconciled with my ex-wife. Yet, I live in her house and we co-parent in a way that most people do not understand. All of this is borne out of necessity. Our son has ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) and requires intense guidance and direction. From the time he gets up, to the time he gets on the bus for school, to the time he gets home, and throughout the evening, our lives are all about a routine that revolves around him. Given his disability, this is what he needs. We will never be a couple again. There’s no desire for this on either of our parts. But in the love we both have for our son, there is no daylight between us.

    So, despite the spirals and darkness that followed my marriage’s end, I find that God was steadfast. I felt his presence even when I chose to ignore it. The Lord was with me throughout.

    He was there as I sat on the bridge in Laramie, WY drinking whiskey. He knew my thoughts as I considered ending my life with a quick leap to the train tracks below me. He guided me to a new job in another state. He led me here to Indiana, in the midst of the pandemic, to care for my son. He allowed my work position to become permanently remote. And he facilitated this entire transition.

    So, the end result is that what God promised to Joshua (and Moses before him), he promises to us today. I was foolish and afraid seven years ago. I was “dismayed.” But God’s grace exceeds my own failings. He is steadfast. I can look back on the past years and see grace made manifest in my life at every turn. I can look ahead, now, and see the opportunity to live a life without fear. After all, there isn’t much more to fear in life that exceeds what I have already endured.

    The thought is a liberating one.

    I’ve already gone through the fire. I’ve traveled to the dark places. I’ve stared down my demons. What was intended for harm, did not stand – all thanks to the steadfastness of God. Like the above rock in the desert, the oceans can fall away. The land can erode around me. The trees and vegetation can wither and die, just like the life I once knew. Yet, my own experience leads me to conclude that in the end, God will remain at my side even if the landscape around me is charred and barren.

    This is all good.

    But it presents an entirely different and exciting question as a result: How would you live your life, if you knew that there was nothing to be afraid of?

    And once you have your answer, go do it. I’m still working on mine.

  • Why Dads Matter

    My Post

    It has been a long while since I’ve graced the pages of Pax Plena with a new post. Given a quiet Father’s Day Sunday here in the U.S., I couldn’t think of a better time to resurrect our ailing blog once again. Like Lazarus rising from the dead, this disease of blogging silence never quite seems to lead to death. Our blog has merely fallen asleep.

     

    What prompted me to write this afternoon was an opinion column by the Washington Post’s Megan McArdle that shared some personal reflections on why fathers matter.

    [Link]

    Truth be told, I don’t really know of any camps that are ardently claiming that fathers do not matter. Granted, an article in the Atlantic, circa 2010, made the case that “there’s nothing objectively essential” about the contribution of a father to the well-being of a child. The point seems a bit weak. The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Indeed, other sources cite a wide body of literature that assess the importance of fathers and their role in fostering the well-being of their kiddos.

    Then again, it is the Atlantic, so one would do well to consider the source… 

    By contrast, McArdle notes of her own family life that “my mother was usually the one who dressed wounds if you fell off the jungle gym; my father was the one who encouraged you to climb a little higher than felt strictly safe.”

    Sure, the point is anecdotal, but I think it’s about right. In our family, Mother was always the one who set the rules, bedtimes, and made sure that we went to church. My Father seldom went to church, and had zero inhibitions about letting me ride in the open bed of a pickup truck while we drove around dusty county roads picking up cans to take to the recycling center. Note: This wasn’t something we did for the sheer virtue of a good deed, or environmentalism. There were no such bourgeois luxuries in the Fodder family of the 1980s. We just needed the money.

    Such parenting today would immediately draw the ire of the nearly every child advocacy group in America, and quite possibly one’s local Department of Child Welfare. Suffice it to say, times were different in the 80s. And, to be fair, if Dad had insisted that I sit next to him inside the cab of the truck, I probably would have pitched a royal fit, and left him wishing that I had just rode in the back of the damn truck to begin with. We poor kids could be a precocious lot. 

    But there was something that was actually quite important that I learned from those dusty drives with dear old Dad. I gained a sense of independence, and self-sufficiency that I never would have gotten had either of my parents been the “helicopter parent” that’s en vogue today. From Dad, I learned to search within myself, and try to solve problems instead of complaining about them. I learned that you can’t always have what you want, but that you can obtain what you want if you’re willing to work for it. And I learned that there are literally millions of ways one can perish by eating a Twinkie.

    (Family Joke: Whenever someone passes away, and one is foolish enough to inquire as to their cause of death within earshot of my Father, Dad’s glib response is always that they “choked on a Twinkie.” We usually groan and laugh, but I suppose normal folks might think this is morbid. Tomāto/Tomăto.) 

    And really, that’s why Dad’s are important: they show love to kids in a fundamentally different way from that of a Mom. And the difference is accounted for in that each parent brings their own lived experiences to the child rearing table, and kids are better for it. After all, what kid doesn’t need more love in their life?

    So, to all of the Dads out there, take heart: you matter. And don’t let the Atlantic tell you otherwise.