| Happy Sunday, everyone. Recently a friend asked me a big question. Due to be a father in about 6 months, unexpectedly, and excited but nervous, he asked me for advice. What should he look out for? How should he approach the biggest job in the world? What is he getting himself into? He wasn't interested in logistical advice ("Buy this piece of baby equipment, that type of diaper, etc"). Now, as I'm a father, I can only speak to fatherhood. Many of my answers will have crossover appeal to mothers, but I can't know for sure. Take what you will. This newsletter could become a full-on post. The job of parent is that huge and all-encompassing. So what I write today is not the full story, just a piece. First, accept your gift with full recognizance and gratitude. Remember the Sunday with Sisson from a couple weeks ago where I wrote about gratitude? Ponder that. Figure out whatever figure you need to be gracious toward. Thank your child's mother. Thank your incoming child. If you swing that way, thank a higher power. Make it a formal operation: really sit there and think and consider and feel the love and gratitude. Speak it out loud. You do this because your body and mind and spirit and nervous system need to align. They need to acknowledge and accept the gift coming their way, and do so cohesively. Your mind knows that this is great news, but maybe your nervous system is all jittery and nervous. You feel butterflies in the body even as you think about the beauty of your future family. Or it's the opposite, and your rational mind is coming up with all the potential downsides while your heart swells with joy. Those all need to align. Ritual acknowledgement of the situation can help there. Second, write down what you want your child to learn from you. Write down what you wish you learned from your father (or mother) and did not. Reflect on what you did learn from him and what served you most. Reflect on what you learned but feel ambivalent about, and whether those things were important just the same. These can be physical skills. Academic areas of study. Interests and hobbies. Sports. Belief systems. Facts, numbers, wisdom. If there's anything you want to teach but don't know yourself, get learning. Use the (excited/nervous) energy flowing through you to shore up your skills. Books and youtube are incredible tools for this. Third, create a sanctuary: a beautiful, calm, relaxing place for you and your wife to reside. This doesn't have to take a lot of money or anything like that. Simple beauty (wild flowers in a vase replaced daily, new coat of paint on the walls, clean surfaces, house plants) is often the most beautiful. Maintain that sanctuary. After that, it's just waiting for the baby to arrive. And that's when everything changes and everything goes out the door. But as long as you've built a strong foundation with the basics outlined above, it will all work out. What would you say to my friend? Let me know in the comment section of Weekly Link Love. Oh, and if you didn't get the chance to catch the limited-time screening of Sacred Cow, you can watch the encore presentation, available through December 6th only! By the time you open this email, you'll only have a day or so left to view it, so don't wait. Thanks for reading, everyone. | 