An open letter to my newborn daughter pt1: New life

Dear Naomi,

Welcome to the world! I can't believe once again I have the privilege of being a father. 

I have been wanting to meet you for such a long time. You haven't been in the world for even two months yet and you have made us all so happy. Your siblings adore you and can't get enough of you. And your mother and I are once again filled with amazement and wonder, asking ourselves how it could be that we we have you, a precious gift beyond what we deserve. You have filled the house with new life and warmth. 

I wanted to tell you a little bit about your name. You and your sister were both named after women in Bible passages that I happened to be studying around the time that you came into the world. Abigail means "my father's delight" and that was appropriate for her because she was the first one to come along and teach me what true delight meant. To me, happiness now has two distinct definitions: One for before I became a father and one for after. All three of you bring me inexpressible joy in equal measure, and any of your names can apply to the rest of you, but it was fitting for my first to be given a name that reflects how transcendent life becomes when you become a parent. 

Your brother Evan was the only one who wasn't named after a biblical character. He was named after the title character of our favorite musical, Dear Evan Hansen. We named him this not because we hoped he would become a dork or loser in high school. He reminds us of the passion and purpose that I have found in my work as a Christian minister. I wish to raise all three of you to have a heart for the lost and a special compassion for the lonely, the misfits, the oddballs, the rejected of society. In order to do that we have to raise all three of you strong and yet willing to give. We want you to share your strength and be a source of hope and peace, being yourselves undeserving recipients of the perfect hope and peace that comes from being found in Jesus. 

So let the sun come streaming in
'Cause you'll reach up and you'll rise again
Lift your head and look around
You will be found

You, Naomi... how do I put into words what you mean to me? You came into my life at a time of profound change and upheaval in the world. I suppose by now you will have heard of the history-defining event that was the global Covid-19 pandemic. Your brother was born into it and your sister was born just before it. But you are the child that came after the earth had been radically reshaped by a disease that killed seven million people worldwide, shut down the global economy, and laid bare for everyone to see just how frail human life is and just how fragile all our technological and commercial safeguards are for human flourishing. 

I know I'm going to botch up explaining this all to you, because truth be told, right now as I type I'm still processing it all myself. I hope in future letters I can continue to explain to you why the world that you are living in right now is so different to the one that your mother and I grew up in. 

You and your siblings will have it harder than us in a number of significant ways. Geopolitically as the axes of power start to reshape itself in the most dramatic way since the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. Economically as the age of abundance comes to a close and as the world continues to get hotter and as one by one staple crops around the globe fail because of all the σκύβαλα we did to the earth driven by our greed. Technologically this acceleration we've been experiencing since the Industrial Revolution cannot be sustainable and the center cannot hold indefinitely and as I sit here I have no clue what it's going to do to human life and in what new and perverse ways it will rend the soul. Socially as we head deeper into the negative world and as a Post-Christian West truly begins to unfurl and as the cost of discipleship continues to rise like inflation. 

Sometimes in my quiet moments I feel sorrowful, even apologetic for having brought you and your siblings into the world at this time. No, no, I am not an anti-natalist (far be it from a Kuyperian-influenced Reformed pastor to be against having kids!) And though I am complicit in some small measure for the world you live in, it's not like any of those things I mentioned was chiefly MY fault. But I just mean to say that I worry sometimes and wonder if the man that I have become in my adulthood is mature enough, consistent enough, reliable enough, strong enough, wise enough, self-controlled enough, and resolved enough to prepare you and your siblings for the life of discipleship that you will face. How will I know what it's like for you? I never had to pay as much to be a follower of Jesus. Despite some touch-and-go moments in the first few years of our marriage, your mother and I always had enough. We always took for granted fresh food, disposable income, and a comfortable middle-class life. Will that be the case when you guys reach adulthood? 

What can I teach you about godliness with contentment? What can I teach you about limits, when I've lived with addiction all my life? What can I teach you about faith and storing treasures in heaven, when the streets of my youth was always paved with gold?

But for your sake I will learn. I will be better. I will grow. I have to. There are little ones who will stand on my shoulders one day. For your sake I will grow.