A Parent’s Reflection on Welcoming the Stranger - or - Macy Equals Concrete

Those who follow this blog with any regularity might have noticed that it has been awhile since I have posted anything of substance in contribution to the discussions we have here (of course, it is surely debatable that anything substantive has made the trip from my PC to cyberspace via de pauperum). Similarly, those whose lives are variously shaped by the rhythms and flow of the Daily Office community at St. Joseph’s may likewise have become cognizant of my recent absence there as well or, at least, the irregularity of my current, very limited participation. And while I might in part attribute my diminished involvement in both communities to the weeks spent in travel over the last few months, the real culprit for my lack of presence is probably best identified as my newborn daughter, Macy (with whom my wife and I were blessed mid-June of this year). For since my wife has newly returned to her job as a full-time elementary school teacher, and given that I am presently in a state of academic limbo this year with respect to my pursuit of a Ph.D., I have had the great privilege of having my time commandeered by both our children – but especially Macy – as I don the cap of the stay-at-home dad. And though I would have most likely been able to maintain more consistent involvement with de pauperum and St. Joseph’s if I were staying at home with my 4 year-old son alone, it is the mysterious gift that is our daughter which makes such fuller participation virtually impossible.

I must admit, however, that Macy’s (in concert with her brother’s) demands on my time are often hard for me to recognize as the gift that they are. Indeed, given the number of hours I was able to spend both in communal prayer and in being with “the guys” at St. Joseph’s last year, the adjustment to a much more muted involvement has been fairly difficult for me. I miss getting to see and pray with JR and Colin twice a day. I miss the adventures that always seemed to come with eating breakfast with “the guys” on the hill. I often feel like an outsider and am envious when I here my compatriots sharing stories or making references to events at St. Joe’s about which I now know little to nothing. In fact, I frequently feel guilty and perhaps even judged for my seeming abandonment of the communal life at St. Joseph’s in exchange for the demands of a more active domestic life.

What I am struggling to learn, however, is that the charge to pursue hospitality with respect to one’s children – who, let’s face it, are as demanding, trying and needy a bunch as any – is no less noble a charge, no less important a mission, no less necessary a calling for those so located as is the call to care for the poor and needy outside the shared walls of our family’s apartment. As our friend and teacher, Stanley Hauerwas, has often stated, the role of parent is very much one in which one is presented with the need to welcome in the stranger who comes in the form of children (cf. Stanley Hauerwas, A Cross-Shattered Church: Reclaiming the Theological Heart of Preaching. [Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2009], 126.). But, of course, it doesn’t provide nearly as gratifying or proud a feeling for someone to acknowledge my role in the pursuance of holiness with respect to the ecclesia domestica as it is for my back to be patted (if even by myself) for time spent sharing meals with the homeless or in a quasi-monastic prayer life. It’s not just that trying to be a good dad isn’t nearly as sexy as spending time with the poor; it’s that the former often feels as if it were a lesser calling or an excuse to avoid the responsibilities of the latter. I am reminded of a bit from comedian, Chris Rock (edited, with faux apologies to Stanley, for the sake of our wider readership):

“You know the worst thing about [some people]? [Some people] always want credit for some @#*% they supposed to do. [Some people] will brag about some @#*% a normal man just does. [They] will say some @#*% like, "I take care of my kids." You're supposed to, you dumb @#*$%! What kind of ignorant @#*% is that? "I ain't never been to jail!" What do you want, a cookie?! You're not supposed to go to jail, you low-expectation-having @#*$%!” (Chris Rock, Bring the Pain, [HBO, 1996])

Surely, as the joke attempts to highlight, the meeting of one’s parental responsibilities is something that is simply expected of the parent, requiring no at-a-boys, recognition, or public expressions of honor for its ongoing pursuit. Caring for the needs of one’s children is just what one is “supposed to” do and, thus, tempts one into thinking it is less worthy an enterprise or allocation of one’s time than is feeding the poor in the quest for holiness. What I am learning from the experience, however, is that my responsibilities and role in the capacity of parent is ultimately no different a job than were/are my attempts to care for “the guys” on the hill. Indeed, I am discovering that sharing meals with the homeless and changing the diapers of one’s newborn daughter are, in fact, two species of the same genus, namely, the cruciform reception and serving of “the other” as “self” in charity. The recognition of this means both that I should feel no sense of shame for my forced time away from our homeless friends at St. Joseph’s and that those (especially at St. Joseph’s) not so familially blessed have as weighty – indeed, as equal! – a responsibility to care for “the guys” as I do as a parent in caring for my kids.

Further still, it means that no demarcating line can be claimed to exist between me and my need to care for my children, on the one hand, and the communicated at St. Joe’s and their/my need to care for the poor on the hill, on the other. Said differently, the privileged responsibility to care for either group cannot be divided up by any absolute boundaries. The biological structures of families and the social spaces in which we all variously move may suggest certain functional roles with respect to primacy regarding who cares for whom (e.g., it makes more sense for Megan and I, as Macy’s parents, to be the primary persons assigned to her care), but the call to welcome the stranger that both Macy and “the guys” comprise is universal to the Christian Church and her members. When it comes to the disciple’s call to follow Jesus in welcoming the stranger, Macy and Concrete are the same.

In short, embarrassingly obvious as it sounds to me now, I have no reason to feel my charge as a parent is less noble a devotion of my time than is, say, filling a prescription for a homeless friend; and I have every reason to believe that the failure to meet our responsibilities in welcoming the stranger, however said responsibilities are distributed sapientally within the Body, is a reprehensible and destructive denial of virtue and the good (e.g., the failure of any of us at St. Joe’s to meet the needs of the strangers daily presented to us in whatever form is as disgusting and roundly debilitating a sin as is parental abdication or the abuse that is fraternal negligence).

Perhaps my recent arrival at these insights is late in coming. And I wouldn’t argue with the charge that they are more than a little self-serving or are a demonstration of my moral obtuseness. I simply offer them in penitence as a reflection of my need for progression in the virtues, an exhibit of my selfishness and need for accountability. And I offer them in hopes that we might all do a better job in spurring each other on in good works, however the opportunities present themselves.