Becoming a Father

Excerpted from
Becoming a Father: The Real Work of a Man's Soul
By John L. Hart, Ph.D.

In many ways, the first modern father was perhaps the most overlooked parent in history. He raised a child that was not his. He provided a home and raised him as if he were his own. He provided shelter of the old-fashioned kind because his stepson was from birth a fugitive and Joseph was there for him. He provided protection; he did anything and everything that was necessary.

He played with him. He helped him know what it meant to be a man and a decent human being. He raised him to be someone special, taught him his trade, took him fishing and didn't get in the way of his stepson's own destiny. Presumably, Joseph stood by, holding back his fatherly instincts to fight and battle to save the life of this young man he must have dearly loved.

He stood by to hear the agony of the nails being driven in, and stood by during Jesus' suffering, spearing, and his slow dying. He was there hearing his stepson cry, "Father, why hast thou forsaken me?" Standing there, crying himself by now, and thinking does he mean me, does he want me to try to do something? Standing there, just standing there. For his own soul and his own destiny, he was standing there. Surely, this was the soul work of being Jesus' earthly father. A man named Joseph fulfilling his own life's work of being as good a father as he possibly could.

Your own work as a father will entail suffering and sacrifice and at some point standing by and watching your own child go their own way toward their own destiny. This will build your soul. I believe it is your fathering that will enable you to fulfill and complete yourself as a man.

It is sacred work. It is the real work of being a man.

It is too bad that Joseph's life with his stepson Jesus is not more known. The loving, the laughter, dinner times, and bath times when he was a baby and a little boy; showing the little boy how to hold a hammer and how to fish; helping him with what he knew about living. Picking the little boy up from hurts and disappointment and helping him deal with worries and bullies. All of this is soul work for a man. This book is about what that work is and some thoughts about how to do that work.

A Bunch of Joes

Unfortunately, I believe that fathers from the 1960s through the decades to today somehow inherited the other message about Joseph. We are superfluous. We are unimportant to the story of childrearing, we don't really matter in parenting, we are out of the picture. Mary is in all the paintings, in all the statues. Joseph just drove the donkey and arranged bad lodging at the inn. It is one of the tragedies of our times that fathers are not considered important to raising our children.

Contemporary fathers, whether biological parent or stepfather, have somehow come to be known as the least important parent. How did this come to be? We will talk more of this later in the book, but first let us consider what if we had the chance to sit down and listen to Joseph, if he could tell us his story.

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Prologue:
Global Press International
Cairo, Egypt (For Immediate Release)

Mining Team Finds Buried Tomb

The National Museum of Egypt is reporting a mysterious and potentially extraordinary find. An oil research expedition near Alexandria reported that during blasting operations their seismic devices had revealed what appeared to be a buried tomb. A National Museum archaeologist accompanying the exploration temporarily halted any further blasting. The area was kept secured and untouched until the arrival of the Museums' Historical Site Exploration Team.

Secured and Intact with Seals Unbroken

After nearly two days of digging, what was unearthed was "a beautifully carved tomb with seals unbroken." Inside the tomb was a sarcophagus containing the body of a very old man who was dressed very simply and did not appear to be a noble or of any royal family in spite of the elaborate richness of the tomb. The senior archaeologist has come forward with little other information. Other unconfirmed sources report that the sarcophagus contained leather-bound primitive books called codices of potentially momentous historical importance. Journalists and media from all over the world are flocking to the site. There is said to be extremely tight security. All archaeologists and the original miners and workers on the site are sequestered.

Momentous Finding

One of the original archaeologists who asked to be anonymous said, "There are as many as four codices that were found in an exquisite wooden box in the sarcophagus with the body." The books are assumed to have been written by the entombed man. One official, asking not to be identified, said it sounds incredulous but the body is identified on the tomb inscription and on the sarcophagus as Joseph, father of Jesus of Nazareth.

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The First Book of Joseph

[Translator's note: The words are carefully written in Greek and some Aramaic. They are written in a Roman style book called a codice that is separated into parts called tractates. The writing is personal, more like a diary or journal rather than scholarly.]

The light fades
the shadows deepen, and my hands are tired.
The scent of jasmine in the garden.
I have lit the old silver lamp, but my eyes can barely see to write.
I have just a little more to say
and then my part in this story without end is done.
I write this now, as a beginning to my books, long after I had finished them. I am an old man and soon to die. I will write no more. I have been blessed in this life with love, family and friendship. I believe these were God's gifts for caring for the child, Jesus. My books here were written at the request of the man known now as Jesus of Nazareth. He wanted me to tell my story, of my work of being his earthly father.
I will lay these books now in this cedar chest. It was a gift he made for me so many years ago. When I touch it, I remember the first time, his hands so small when we made things. . . . but that is in my story.

[Translator's note: THE FIRST TRACTATE OF THE FIRST CODICE. These pages are clearly older than the above and appear more clumsily written.]

My Story of Becoming a Father

It is strange for me with these scarred and broken hands of a carpenter to write. I am clumsy with pen and with the words, and the paper seems soft. It does not seem like something that can endure like wood. My son asked me to write this and so did my patron Kahlil and so I do this for them. Kahlil has helped me with the writing, but the words are mine and this is my story of being a father. I have been guided and blessed by great dreams sent to me by God during my lifetime. It is the holy dreams that guided my life and my destiny. Mary and I had the raising of the child who was God's son and my earthly son, Jesus.

Mary

I was betrothed to Mary who was my beloved since we were children growing up together in our village. Even as a child, Mary was different from the others. She was independent, strong and always curious. She wanted to know everything and learn. It was difficult for her, for though she was always most feminine and lovely, there was also the desire there for knowledge. She might have been a rabbi if not born a woman. Any caravan that passed she would find a way to talk to the traders, to learn the new songs, new poems and the stories of far-away places. She somehow learned counting and arithmetic. She knew how to make letters and words and so she was always in trouble with those who wanted her only to be a poor simple woman. That she grew lovely only brought her more attention. Others wanted her, but she wanted only me.

My mother and father had died when I was a small boy. They had drowned in a sudden storm on the sea and my uncle had raised me. Mary had been my friend and my consolation in my sorrow. She would find me sitting by myself and would just sit by me. It was then that I think that my love for her started. We would walk when we were older up to the place high on the hill under the fragrant trees, look out over the sea and wait for the stars.

Perhaps my story really begins there. It was a day in spring, just a month before our wedding, when we met there to watch the sunset and see the new moon. It was there that she stood before me and told me she was with child.

Up until that moment, I had been only a youth, skilled with my hands and full of myself. Full of my skills with wood, full of my luck and pride in having Mary, full of the delight I secretly took in others' envy of my skill, my strength and the loveliness of my bride-to-be. It was as though I lived life seeing myself through the eyes of others, those who told me how special I was. I lived looking to see how others saw me.

When she said, "I am with child," my life turned. With those four words, my life, as I had planned it, was destroyed. I stood looking at her. Her face was radiant and she tried to say something else to me. I turned away looking out over the waters. I saw a bird plummeting into the water to take a fish. The water splashed up and sparkled in the setting sun.

Darkness

I cannot write that I am proud of how I acted then. I acted like any youth that believes life is only about himself. At first, I was unbelieving, then astonished, and then in a rage of jealousy and shame to have been cuckolded on the very eve of my marriage. The very way she told me infuriated me. How could she stand there? She should have come crawling on her knees. I shouted at her, I screamed every vile word for whore, harlot and bitch. I was spitting into her face that I hated her. I wanted her to suffer.

We stood together, I remember now, in a place of holy beauty. The sun was reddening the sky and light was shining through the clouds in a way that the earth and all the air around were glowing. It was as though light flowed from out of the sky and the sea and Mary herself, and yet I hated the light from her face. I despised her beauty and the fragility in the tears in her eyes as she asked for understanding.

I had no understanding. I struck her down and left her on her knees reaching out to me. There was no understanding in me, only rage and pain. It shames me now and brings tears to my eyes to write this and remember my dear Mary on her knees with her blood running down her face with her tears. I turned and left her there.

I went down the hill, my own tears on my face and my heart bleeding. I felt like killing. I wanted to go into our village, to drink wine at the inn with my friends, shout, curse and break things. I wanted to destroy her. In my righteousness, I could shame and destroy her and the little bastard she was carrying. I could gather my friends, we could go to the rabbi and then denounce her. We could stone her and the bastard she carried. She was unclean, dirty, the mother of a muzarim, the excrement of the community. My righteous uncle would say that she deserved to die. Every stone I imagined shattering her like she had my life. It was my right. I had my honor to uphold and that of my family. When she was stoned and dead and the dogs, rats and birds had had their way, nothing would remain of her and the muzarim and then I would be seen as wounded and yet righteous. It was not I who had fallen.

I picked up stones as I stumbled down. I was hurling stones and screaming curses. As they shattered on the boulders I imagined it was Mary and saw her falling down and dying. I do not know why I did not turn toward the inn to find pity. Instead, I went into my own home, and taking my bedroll and water-skin, I walked out into the darkness toward the mountains.