Happy Birthday, Emerson

Emerson, today you now longer have to say that you’re only one. You’re finally two. It has flown by so fast for your parents.

Emerson, I love you. You brighten up each day of my life. You are fun, you are cute, you energize me – and take the energy out of me! I love to share my day with you and share what happens in our days together, because they are always a surprise. You shock me. I never know what you’re going to come up with next, how you’ll respond to situation, what kind of face you’ll give from one day to the next. Today, you’ll learn something new, do something new, that you haven’t done before. You show me that this life that we have is a gift, a miracle.

You have two names that we gave you when you were born. You are named after two people, Emerson Jude.

Ralph Waldo Emerson was a poet, a philosopher, and a scholar much like your dad. He thought about the world, about God, about love, and all in all loved to be out in nature—much like yourself. He spent time thinking about how amazing and wonderful the world is.

While you may not yet be a philosopher yourself, you approach the world with a spirit of awe and wonder—and philosophy, as Aristotle says, begins in wonder. You have also reminded this philosopher (your dad) quite a number of philosophical truths. You have taught me about free will – about how I cannot control you, you are not a robot, and you did not come with an instruction manual. Like Kierkegaard’s faith, which is a leap in the dark, so is parenthood. You have taught me, as Chesterton said, that the best things in life should be done, even if badly. Parenting is one of those things. We are all amateurs, blindly learning what it means to be a parent and learning from our mistakes. Thank you for letting me make mistakes.

You have taught me what it means to live in the present (and frankly, I can’t live in the past because I still get enough sleep to remember it). You force me to put down my future, to stop worrying about what I need to get done tomorrow, stop living in the world of anxiety and success and let each day come and accept it as a gift. You enjoy the now, like a lily in the field, trusting God to clothe you – or just, running around naked and not worrying about clothing at all.

You are also named after Saint Jude, the patron saint of lost causes, the saint of the marginalized, the outcast, the forgotten. I want you to remember that we serve a God who loves the nobodies. He does not give up on anyone. May you be a person who loves the unlovable, who cares for those who are forgotten by our society.

Emerson I love you. We, your parents, are thankful for you, and we wish you a happy birthday.