O My Son, My Son

O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!" 2 Samuel 18:33

Those words of David's after his rebellious son was slain by his men have been ringing through my mind, partly because it the week we commememorate the death of God's only Son and partly because of what Cindy at Dominion Family wrote on Blessings: I Don't Think that Word Means What You Think It Means.

It reminds me a bit of MacDuff's words in MacBeth, when he finds his innocent children have been slaughtered while he was away:

I cannot but remember such things were,
That were most precious to me.—Did heaven look on,
And would not take their part? Sinful Macduff,
They were all struck for thee! naught that I am,
Not for their own demerits, but for mine,
Fell slaughter on their souls. Heaven rest them now!
MacBeth Act IV Scene III

I think I foresaw this sorrow even before having children, because I clearly remember being quite terrified of being a mother. The physical details didn't scare me at all, but this future weight of guilt and remorse DID. I somehow knew about the failures, the mistakes, the subtle and half-unintentional betrayals, the outright sins. I knew my lacks. When I first heard MacDuff's lament, I sobbed, and reading of David's misery still brings me to tears. I know a bit of how he felt.

Later on I read some of the triumphalistic homeschool literature "train up your children in the way they should go..." and it was a nice antidote for some of my tendencies towards melancholy fatalism, but it went too far. It is a borderline heresy -- that somehow you can get it all right as a parent, that God has promised rewards to those who cross the right T's and dot the right I's. Wasn't that the Pharisees' mistake -- to think they could pull themselves with their own bootstraps into God's kingdom? Isn't even stranger to think we can do this for our children?

Who would dare gaze straight into the eyes of God's Son, our Saviour, and say that "Yes, I trained my children, always and everywhere, in the way they should go"? Isn't that Proverb a maxim that ought to inspire humility, like our Lord's admonition: "Let him who has not sinned cast the first stone?" Isn't it a bit like the Old Testament Law of which Paul says: "All who sin under the law will be judged by the law?" (Romans 2) Shouldn't it make us tremble a bit and seek out God in humility? Yes, we have to do all we can to cooperate. But it is not enough, in itself.

It is written of Job with regard to his sons that

When the days of feasting had completed their cycle, Job would send and consecrate them, rising up early in the morning and offering burnt offerings according to the number of them all; for Job said, "Perhaps my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts." Thus Job did continually.

Job 1:5

This is a testament to Job's character, which made no presumptions upon its own excellence, and it lays out a ground plan for my own endeavours. Not that I am starting the morning fire in order to roast livestock for the offering, not that I can be anything more than an aspirer to Job's courage and excellence, but that I will call on God continually and ahead of time. If he did it, how much more should I?

St Therese of Lisieux writes in A Story of a Soul:

I know that "To whom less is forgiven he loveth less," but I know too that Our Lord has forgiven me more than St. Mary Magdalen. Here is an example which will, at any rate, show you some of my thoughts...

Let us suppose that the son of a very clever doctor, stumbling over a stone on the road, falls and breaks his leg. His father hastens to him, lifts him lovingly, and binds up the fractured limb, putting forth all his skill. The son, when cured, displays the utmost gratitude, and he has excellent reason for doing so. But let us take another supposition.

The father, aware that a dangerous stone lies in his son's path, is beforehand with the danger and removes it, unseen by anyone. The son, thus tenderly cared for, not knowing of the mishap from which his father's hand has saved him, naturally will not show him any gratitude, and will love him less than if he had cured him of a grievous wound.

But suppose he heard the whole truth, would he not in that case love him still more? Well now, I am this child, the object of the foreseeing love of a Father "Who did not send His son to call the just, but sinners." He wishes me to love Him, because He has forgiven me, not much, but everything. Without waiting for me to love Him much, as St. Mary Magdalen did, He has made me understand how He has loved me with an ineffable love and forethought, so that now my love may know no bounds.

Surely, if God protects our children and they grow to become straight arrows from our quiver, the proper response is humble gratitude. Surely the attitude during those formative, refining-by-fire years of active parenting ought to be that of beseeching God to help us make our childrens' paths to heaven as smooth as possible, to help us make right their wounds and stumbles, and to pick ourselves up with His help continually in our own stumbles. "Training up our children in the way they should go" is a daily adventure, a journey alongside them, not some list we can check off and feel good about.

It does not have to be a joyless, fearful endeavour. John Senior in Restoration of Christian Culture wrote (of Christianity, but it could apply to our parenting task as well):

"...the Camino Real of Christ is a chivalric way, romantic, full of fire and passion, riding on the pure, high-spirited horses of the self with their glad, high-stepping knees and flaring nostrils, and us with jingling spurs and the cry “Mon Joie!” –the battle cry of Roland..”

I am so glad that life and love were stronger than my original fear of being the damage done to my innocent children. I am so grateful for the seven olive shoots around our table, and the three more with God that I hope we will greet joyfully someday. I will never stop praising God for the stones He has removed before my children stumbled, the the hurts He has healed, and I will never stop praying and offering for their future well being and safety in His arms.