I thought I loved before. But then, while in my arms, the first time any one of my children looked at me, my heart catapulted over a hill. And I vowed never to do or say a hurtful thing. Then came the grief of getting lost in the forest of parenting. Not believing the shit that occasionally came out my mouth. And wondering what I was modeling. Then backing into some kind of parental dogma, some of it church stuff, the rest cobbled together, thought stout, even sacred, and then, the sorrow of seeing cracks appear in those tender souls. Then came the realization that I couldn’t protect any one of them from the pain of this world, still, trying mightily, yet failing miserably. And failing was like dying. So many deaths. Such as, dying to my treasured notion of what a child of mine will look like, will turn out to be. And the death of control and death to my concept, albeit benign, of some kind of ownership; learning instead, that fatherhood is a process of divestiture. Oh, but in that process, a series of resurrections. Moments of wholeness. Great big, calm, okayness. Riding our bikes down to the pink bridge. Lunch in a treehouse. And Disneyland, why not? A school play, a soccer game, a canoe trip, a camping washout, a graduation, driver’s license, and watching my kids from a distance, all the astounding elegance, flashes of brilliance, the bounty of being ‘dad’ bursting in my heart, and with it, a magnificent load of hushed worry, all of it, nothing less than love. Something akin to divine love I guess. And through it all, maybe those cracks heal a little, or maybe the scars are important, or maybe in the mystery of that forest, souls are preserved — tender. What am I saying? well hell, you want transformation? You don’t need to go on a pilgrimage, don’t need to chant ancient scriptures, don’t need a monastery or ashram, all you need to do is help raise a child. And if you think that’s some kind of transfiguring practice for fathers, think what it is for mothers!