Sep. 25, 2009

My son, Spencer, was born on Monday at 5:34pm.  Whenever I am in the chair in the birthing room (this was the third time) there are a lot of thoughts and feelings swirling around my head.  What will it be like to hold my son for the first time?  Will this be an easy or hard birth for my Marisa?  Do I really have to sleep on a chair like that tonight?  (I know that I should only be thinking of my wife, but all guys have this question whether they admit it or not).  What will he look like?  How much will he weigh?  What will it be like when he is a teenager?  But one of the biggest questions going through my head this time was “how will my girls react the first time they see him”?  I had been excited about this for days.  Spencer arrived.  I held him for a few minutes before we were moved to the room where we would spend a rather sleepless 24 hours.  My mother-in-law arrived with the girls and my eyes where glued to them to see how they would respond to seeing their brother for the first time.  I will never forget seeing my oldest daughter’s reaction when she first saw Spencer.  When she arrived her mouth looked like it was a single line, but it smiled none the less.  Her eyes looked like they were peaking into a magical word that no one but her could see.  I was amazed, however, at what happened when her eyes fell on the brother that she had been waiting so long to see.  She immediately turned away from him and proudly embraced her little sister Shiloh.

I’ve read “The Four Loves” by C.S. Lewis twice.  I specifically remember reading it the second time because it was just a few weeks before my wedding.  I have a habit (perhaps a bad one) of reading while I wait for my wife to go into labour which can be a long process when the labour is induced.  The book of choice for my first born was “The End Of Poverty” by Jeffery Sachs.  This time I read a little book by Tim Keller called “The Prodigal God”.  He quoted a portion of Lewis’ “The Four Loves” that I had forgotten about.  A bit of context.  Lewis was a part of group called the “Inklings”.  This was a group of several friends, most of whom were great thinkers who would meet in a pub to discuss and debate, eat, drink and laugh.  There were other famous people who “belonged” to this group, including the man who brought us “The Lord of The Rings” J. R. R. Tolkien and the author Charles Williams.  The “Inklings” has since inspired many people.  More and more people are meeting in pubs and cafes to discuss theology.  One of my favourite podcasts “The Kindlings Muse” has the “Inklings” as it’s inspiration (http://www.thekindlings.com).  Sometime after Charles Williams died, Lewis wrote the following:

In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out.  By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets.  Now that Charles is dead, I shall never again see Ronald’s [Tolkien’s] reaction to a specifically Charles joke.  Far from having more of Ronald, having him “to myself” now that Charles is away, I have less of Ronald.

What an amazing thought!  We know more about one person not through having them all to ourselves, but by seeing how other people bring out different aspects of them that we cannot.  While this may seem a bit heady, the examples intuitive and beautiful.  What was it that caused Soleil to hug Shiloh when she saw Spencer?  His arrival caused their relationship to deepen.  Not only that, but as I watched Soleil’s interaction with Spencer and Shiloh, my understanding of, and relationship to her deepened as well.  I will never forget that moment.  Lewis goes on to say,

In this, Friendship exhibits a glorious “nearness by resemblance” to heaven itself where the very multitude of the blessed (which no man can number) increases the fruition which each of us has of God.  For every soul, seeing Him in her own way, doubtless communicates that unique vision to all the rest.  That, says an old author, is why the Seraphim in Isaiah’s vision are crying “Holy, Holy, Holy” to one another (Isaiah 6:3).  The more we thus share the Heavenly Bread between us, the more we shall have.

In an age of individualism, this is a beautiful reminder that, in Tim Keller’s words “it takes a community to know an individual”.  It also takes a community to “know” (I am using that word loosely) God.  We were made in his image, and made to reflect that image to each other (and to creation itself).  I imagine that if Soleil and Shiloh truly worship God together, their reaction might be the same.  Embrace.