The Evolution of Perspective

For those of you who have reached this post via Facebook, you possibly already know that I was in a car accident last night. I was stopped at a red light and was rear ended by a college girl. And I don't mean that she gave me a little 'love tap' on my bumper...I mean that she didn't see me soon enough and then accidentally hit the accelerator instead of the break. So she hit me going about 35-40 miles per hour.

As you can see from the photo, the back end of my car is pretty mangled and the car is inoperable. I'm currently involved in the annoying process of working with insurance companies, finding a rental car, and getting my car repaired. Hopefully this process does not drag on too long. We can't afford too much hassle as we are also currently in the process of leaving Seattle and moving to Bozeman, MT.

The scariest part about this whole ordeal was that Zoe was in the backseat in her car seat. It took me a second or two after the collision to catch my bearings, but once I realized we had been hit, my first thought was for the safety of my child. I instantly rushed around the car, whipped her car seat out of its dock, and scooped her into my arms. She was doing great, but just a little startled.

I find myself thinking about this accident in light of now having a child. If this would have happened a year ago, I would have been annoyed and pissed that this idiot driver just ruined my car and would have been focused on the hassle of needing to contact the police, my insurance company, and a tow truck. But when you have a child, none of that stuff matters much. As long as Zoe was safe, everything else was okay. I was relatively calm. I didn't get angry. I was patient and forgiving with the girl who hit me. I was grateful for the witnesses that were so helpful. In general, I wasn't my normal self! Being a father had suddenly changed my perspective and transformed me into a better person with better priorities.

Everyone always says that having a child changes everything in your life. They may be right.

Lessons Learned Now That Will Impact My Future

As the father of a new baby, it seems like they are doing new things almost every day. For sure, each week she is a new person with new activities. One thing that Zoe has been doing a lot of lately is talking. Now of course she isn't saying any real words yet, but her cooing and grunting and babbling have us plenty excited regardless. This new phenomenon is so fun and exhilarating for me as a parent that I sometimes get caught up in the moment and interrupt her talking in the course of my celebration and excitement. I feel the need to jump in and respond to any noises she makes with my own oohs and aahs, instead of allowing her to continue using her voice. Sometimes me making noises in response causes her to be silenced. I'm finding that when I give Zoe the space to talk, without immediately responding with my own noises, she often continues talking for much longer than she would have otherwise.

I'm learning to let her find her voice.

This point of self-discovery has caused me to think about how this similar posture will be very important as she grows older, and especially as she moves into her teenage years. I will need to give her the space to explore, discover, and use her own voice. I will need to allow her the time and opportunity to realize who she is, what she is passionate, and how to interact in the world...without dad getting in the way. Too often parents can stifle their children by never allowing them the freedom for exploration and discovery. While I want to help shepherd my daughter into maturity and healthy living, I will need to temper my desire to be too hands-on in this process. At times I will need to simply back off, give her space, and trust that we have raised her in a way that she will be able to make wise choices. I'm positive this will be a challenge, but hey, no one said this parenting thing was going to be easy, right! I'm just hopeful that our family will be one of grace: where we help Zoe to understand the immensity of God's grace, where Zoe gives her parents much grace as they stumble through the task of parenting, and where we, as parents, give ourselves grace when we falter.

Finding God in the Ordinary

I'm currently about half finished with a book called An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith by Barbara Brown Taylor. I was alerted to this book by a fellow blogger a few months ago when the electronic version was on sale for $.99. After reading a brief synopsis, it seemed like I might have learned of Taylor's book at just the right time. Plus, you can't go wrong with spending a buck on a book!

An Altar in the World is essentially a book about finding God in the ordinary, plain, mundane things of life. Sometimes faith and spirituality are pedaled as things that only come through grandiose means or through activities that are inherently and explicitly spiritual, like reading scripture, prayer, or church attendance. Taylor argues that God is found in a myriad of places that we might not expect to find God if we have not made ourselves available to finding God anywhere. So far she has argued that God is revealed through activities like paying attention to the world, being aware of our physical bodies, walking, getting lost, and community. In the words of Taylor, "Anything can become a spiritual practice once you are willing to approach it that way—once you let it bring you to your knees and show you what is real, including who you really are, who other people are, and how near God can be when you have lost your way."

This is just the message I needed at this time as I begin a season of life as a stay-at-home dad. Having a child has already slowed life to a grinding halt, but when my wife returns to work in less than a month, my life is about to enter a world of monotony that I have never known before. My world will shrink even small than it currently is as my daily routine with revolve around the sleeping, feeding, and changing of my little one. I will need to find ways to be reminded of the inherent spirituality of raising a child. I will need to find ways to see God in the daily grind. I will need to encounter Christ on our daily walks, our trips to the store, and our more-frequent-than-desired diaper changes. I believe this can happen, but it will take more intentionality than I am used to. May God grant me the eyes to see and the ears to hear the (extra)ordinary ways that the world might become an altar over this next year of parenthood.

What A Crazy Month!!

In looking at my blog, I see that it has been about a month since my last post...and what a month it has been. To say that this past month has been been crazy would be one of the greatest understatements of my life. The most significant event of the past 30 days is undoubtedly the birth of my first child, Zoe Hope Bowker. She graced us with her presence on Wednesday, May 30 at 12:39pm, weighing in at 7 pounds 1.5 ounces. She has been amazing thus far, and parenting has been an incredible journey. She is now almost one month old and is doing great. Mom and baby are both really healthy and we are loving our life. I am sure that as I settle into a better routine and get back to a relatively normal life again I will be blogging plenty about the joy, pain, and humor of raising our daughter.

As a result of Zoe's birth, our apartment has been a revolving door of friends and family. We have the greatest friends in the world, and feel so fortunate that they were with us throughout this entire process. They brought us food each day, ran errands for us, and were a constant presence of love and support during our initial period of adjustment. Our families came to visit about two weeks after Zoe was born, so our friends were incredibly helpful over those first weeks of her life, serving as our Seattle family. My parents were then in town for a week, followed by a week with Mandy's parents. They are all so excited to be grandparents again, so it has been really fun to watch them interact with their granddaughter.

The final thing that has added to the chaos of this past month is that I officially graduated from seminary this past Saturday. After four great, yet challenging, years of graduate school at The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology, I graduated with my Master of Divinity degree. This was a very special day for me as it marked the culmination of a daunting journey--one that led us to sell half of our possessions, quit our jobs, leave our home, and move half-way across the country to a city where we knew no one and had no pre-arranged source of income. It has been a beautiful story of adventure, risk, and courage, and I am so glad that Mandy and I decided to venture out together.

So yeah...it's been a crazy month. I'll keep you all posted on the continued unfolding of my story. Looks like it's gonna be a wild ride...just the way I would prefer it!

Playing the Waiting Game

Well, we have officially passed 38 weeks and are now within 2 weeks of our due date. But still no baby. Its not that we actually expected the baby to come by this time, or really anytime soon, but our lives have definitely slowed to a grinding pace as we anxiously await the coming of our first child. It is strange not knowing when she will arrive. There is no other big event in life (other than death) that you can't plan ahead of time and generally know what to expect. But with this...we have no idea. We don't know what day she will come...or what time she will come...or how big she will be...or how difficult labor will be...or that she will even be a she (let's hope the ultrasound tech wasn't wrong or our boy will have a lot of pink outfits!!).

We have done all we can to ready ourselves for parenthood, but now we get to sit and wait. We've read the books, taken the classes, had the showers, bought the stuff, decorated the room, cleaned the house, and packed the birth bag, but I'm sure nothing would ever truly prepare us for the blessed and welcomed responsibility of caring for a fragile, little life.

On another note, this weekend marks the first time that having a child (or being close) has forced us to say no to an activity that we wish we could do. This will be the first Memorial Day Weekend of our marriage that we are not traveling out of town for some sort of camping trip or vacation. Many of our friends are heading to Whistler, British Columbia for a weekend of fun and mountain biking, but we had to decline their invitation since we are so close to delivery. I must admit that, while I am immensely excited to be a dad, this change does not come without a great sense of loss and grief in the transition between one way of living and another. I liked my life. I liked being able to take off for the mountains on a beautiful Saturday without a care in the world. I liked the spontaneity of hurrying off to our favorite restaurant just before happy hours ends. I liked being in control of my own schedule. I liked my freedom.

I hesitate in writing what I just did for fear of looking like a terrible parent, but I am positive I am simply naming aloud the thoughts and feelings of most expectant parents. I am sure I will quickly settle into a new, amazing routine and rhythm with my child, but I first just need to acknowledge the loss and pain that this new transition has brought with it. It's not easy. It's not always going to be fun. There are going to be times I will wish I could just go back to the way it was before. But there are of course going to be a million magical moments that I wouldn't trade for the world. And those are the moments I am currently longing for. Enough of this waiting. I want my little girl to be here!