I've been chewing on this (sent to me from my mom)

My mom sends me things to read. The topics vary. Sometimes she finds things she knows I've been thinking about. Sometimes it's things she thinks I should be thinking about. Whatever it is, I always read them and I'm always prompted to think about something in them.

Over the years, my collection of photocopied articles and newspaper clippings has grown. So has my deep appreciation for this gift of learning, thinking and fostering dialogue among loved ones that my mom has modeled so well for me.

A recent article she sent me was entitled: The building blocks of being a dad (Larry Matthews, Globe and Mail, June 15, 2008). Though it's about being a dad, I think what Matthews writes about applies to both fathers and mothers.

He writes,

Fatherhood came to me at age 30, thrusting me into a role that was both mysterious and mundane. The mundane came in a barrage of infant needs. Thankfully my wife had prepared, studying how-to books well in advance of our son's birth, and bringing forward the collected wisdom of a durable Atlantic community. I served as the assistant, and was on a steep learning curve. One lesson I learned about the care of another human being that the mundane – the food and clothes and diapers and equipment – is inescapable. I have been slower to grasp the mystery...

...And that is the mystery – that helping raise these tiny creatures for whom I was responsible would create a profound desire for them own heart, and that a parent’s need for a child continues to grow. How utterly I have come to need my children, how deeply they move me, and how powerful they have become in my life.

...I caught a glimpse of a procession of fathers marching across the Canadian Tire parking lot. Each man is drawn by the child in front, the past pursuing the present and, through them, our hopes for the future. In my vision my father, who is 81, and will cross town to see his son, followed me and behind him, my grandfather, and behind him, my great-grandfather, all drawn forward by their daughters and sons.

In front of me strode my son, oblivious to my vision, and not thinking at all of the sons and daughters I hope he has some day, so they may teach him what it is to play freely, to need others deeply and to know pure joy.

The mundane and the mystery. I like that.