As Fatherhood Beckoned, Was I Ready For It?
In which Teófilo describes his state of mind and spirit on the eve of fatherhood.
To say that impending fatherhood reoriented my life is an understatement. First, the logistics. We knew we had enough material things to sustain the baby. Our budget was tight, and often we only had $50 left in our account for discretionary expenses per payday. We checked our balances often by phone. Otherwise, we would go to the ATM and inquire for our balance. That way we could know out money situation every day. Though money was tight. But we had no doubt that we would be able to provide for the baby. We did so without asking for food stamps. In fact, we thought we wouldn't even qualify for them. In retrospect, we could have, but didn't.
We knew God would provide, and He did. We never lacked for basics at home.
Mindset at the time of pregnancy
As I don’t tire to say, I was a work in progress at the time and well before. My adult physical maturity had arrived, but I still had a lot of the child and youth in me.
I threw myself into my career. Then I restarted college at Black Hills State University. This college had an extension campus on base. I started my class load by taking courses I deemed as standard for a bachelors in the US. I came to my definition of "standard" by browsing through college catalogs. This gave me an idea of what other schools considered "core courses." Then I would register for those. That way, the credits would be easy to transfer to other schools in case I had to move.
Basic training qualified as physical education, and I was happy for that. No suffering goes unrequited by God, when offered in his Name. That included the Basic Training ordeal.
I also had the 72 credits I had accrued at UPRM. I'd also determined I would retake the courses I'd failed at UPRM. I wanted to show myself I could prevail over those failures, and I did too.
Beyond my further pursuit of formal studies, I introspected a lot. I wanted to know myself better. I'd wanted to excise the negative baggage I'd acquired from my upbringing.
I loved Mercie even more. I developed a fierce protective instinct around her and the baby within her. My personal priorities began to shift away from becoming a scientist without me realizing it. I started looking for any opportunity that would improve our finances. It wasn't an instant decision, for I still wanted to become a physicist. But, as a consequence of the pregnancy, my professional desires gained a nuance. Yes, I still wanted to become a physicist and an astronaut, but my family's wellbeing came first.
Most important in this scheme, I was, and would always remain, faithful to her. Praised be God, I overcame every temptation against our marriage bond then, and ever since. Keeping my marriage bond inviolate was then, and still remains, a miracle of God's grace, considering my upbringing and the male exemplars I had as I grew up.
Spiritual state at the time of pregnancy
In retrospect, I see that my soul, my spirit, that is, my deepest self where I was to encounter God wasn't ready for fatherhood. This is because despite the gifts the Lord had bestowed upon me, I hadn’t responded to His gifts in a commensurate way. My spiritual shortcomings notwithstanding, I pushed ahead. I knew I had to give the best of myself at every moment during my emerging fatherhood. The results were uneven. My firstborn would have to suffer from all my shortcomings as I “winged it.”
I attended Mass and received Holy Communion and Reconciliation regularly. I continued to read a lot on a diversity of subjects. But I was unable to apply an integrative narrative in my mind because of the information flood. I lacked the instructions needed to unify my inner life with the liturgical life of the Church. I also sensed that, despite the decent liturgies I attended, something was missing. To complicate matters, despite the best efforts of the good priests I knew, they were unable to direct me toward holiness.
As a result, I remained living like a beginner in Christ, years after my Holy Spirit experience. What does it mean, to be a beginner? The beginner stage is when, with the help of God’s grace, we intend to live like Christ. Our choice for Christ must make a difference in one’s lives. We had to do so mindfully, with right intention and will, clear in our purpose. Jesus was and is the supreme example I had to pattern myself after.
I was aware I had to get rid of my old self and putting on the new one in Christ. St. Paul speaks of this in his letter to the Ephesians (4:22-24):
You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
The beginner stage is the Catholic Christian basic training. I was a poor example of it because disorder reigned in my spiritual life. Many times the new self would peek through my willful actions, and I would feel good. But at times the old self would burst forth, and I felt far from God. Saint Paul also experienced this contradiction:
I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. (Romans 15:7-20).
There’s a lot to unpack there, but for now we can walk away with this awareness: when one isn’t walking with Christ, one feels no division within one’s soul or conscience. In that state, one’s conscience isn’t formed or educated enough to make choices for Jesus’s sake. But once we say yes to Jesus, the graces the Holy Spirit granted us Catholic Christians through Baptism and Confirmation begin to flow free. At that point one acquires a Christian conscience. One’s choices for good or for evil gain clarity. One becomes aware of one’s inner divisions and how Jesus’ demands conflict with one’s impulses and values.
The line between good and evil writes itself upon our hearts. A battle commences in one’s heart between the good we want to embrace and one’s disordered passions. One’s heart becomes a battlefield between good and evil. A kind of spiritual fatigue then develops. A sense of futility sets in. One goes back and forth debating if this Christian life isn’t but a farfetched dream. One then lowers one’s guard and allows for a “bit of sin” to enter into one’s mind. After a short while one begins to sense the clash between the impurity of sin and one’s impurity. The soul pangs to a return to grace. Confession and Communion follows, with a new resolve. A little bit later, the cycle repeats.
That was me at that time and for many years afterwards.
The battle went on inside of me. An observer wouldn’t have seen anything amiss in our lives and households. My INTJ agony was, for the most part, an inner affair.
Beginners according to St. John of the Cross
Saint John of the Cross calls this beginning period of testing and growth the active night of the senses. A “beginner,” for St. John of the Cross, is one who is all in. He has already established a life of prayer but has not yet surrendered fully to the will of God.
In this stage a beginner must engage in intentional acts of self-denial. He or she must seek to know God in a new and deeper way through meditative prayer. Harder still, one must strip selfishness away. I also had to cut all the deceptive pleasures flowing from sinful attachments. Beginners also had to cut all unhealthy desires within.
This is tough to do. But why do this. Why go through all that trouble? Because God wants us to be free. We must cut the shackles of sins binding us, with His help.
A painful, though instructive process
Transcending this beginner stage took me a long, long time. I zig and zagged, went into subjective spiritual highs and lows. In fact, as a consequence of my inner, raging storms, I would leave the Catholic Church. I would exit the Catholic Church through a Protestant door. I would join the Eastern Orthodox Church. would explore Buddhism. I would allow myself to be dominated by untamed passions. I was not as good as I ought to have been.
I would return to the Catholic Church to stay after all these experiences. But that's a story I will tell further ahead.
I stayed in a beginner mode of Christian life until early in the first decade of the 2000’s. I often ponder if I’d hada more rigorous spiritual direction at the time. I would’ve done better in my walk with Christ. A more rigorous spiritual direction could have shown me my state and the best way to navigate through this night. It didn't happen because somehow it was God’s will for me to go through all this.
Therefore, I couldn’t say I was ready to become a father, but with the benefit of hindsight, I ask, who is ever ready? Those who don’t resist God’s grace as I did, are the lucky ones. The rest of us are destined to blunder into the answers, one question at a time.
Bonus Video
Sledgehammer by Peter Gabriel was the hit song of the year 1986.