White-crowned Sparrows : The Blur of Parenting
White-crowned Sparrows
These are White-crowned Sparrows. They’re juveniles. They’re siblings, pausing in their breakfast foraging. The parents weren’t in evidence. Perhaps they were hidden. Perhaps they had raised their young to a point of sufficient independence. The photo depicts the bird on the left tack-sharp. The one on the right has just a slightly soft focus. The photographer is the constant element: same equipment, techniques, etc., but the birds’ slight positional variance impacts the image. The birds are related, but how they look, how they’re understood, is a tiny bit different. There are photographic methods for rendering both birds simultaneously sharply, but at an artistic cost. Nothing in photography happens except with trade-offs.
Children in the Bible reflect the full gamut of human experience. The difference between Cain and Abel has become an iconic watchword. Noah’s daughters, children of the most righteous man of his generation, commit gross immorality that shocks the conscience no less today than millennia ago. Isaac, the loyal son, seemingly trusts in Abraham even as his father binds him on the sacrificial pyre. Years later, in a beautiful allegory of filial piety, Isaac digs again Abraham’s wells, making clear that the son is committed to carrying on the legacy entrusted to him by God and his father. The only consistent thread as we read these historical family dynamics is that even in their widest variance, we today find them universally relatable - for good and ill.
To be a parent, in Biblical times or today, is a challenge. Our children’s actions are often gratifying. And at times they behave in ways - seemingly out of nowhere - that make us question our own role as parents and exemplars. Distinguishing between what we do and don’t like in our kids’ actions is easy. But what to do about it? There’s the rub. How far into trouble do we let them run, trusting that current mistakes will come out in the wash? What’s our responsibility; how much do we heroically tug on the reins versus exhaustedly drop them? All the answers have trade-offs and hidden costs. May we be given the vision - sometimes sharp, sometimes blurred - to see both Sparrows and our children as we ought, to our mutual benefit.