Thanks to those who chimed in on the debate over global warming.

Recently, the fine folks at EbFlo asked me to write an essay or answer some Q&A for their artist spotlight section. For the hey of it I did both. I submitted this journal only to find out that the company was immediately closing shop for good. My services were no longer needed, it would seem. I hope it wasn’t something I said. I didn’t want the efforts to go to total waste so I thought I’d post them here in installments. Today, “The Edification of Diapers”. Tomorrow (or thereabouts), a little bit of Q&A. In the meantime, I hear you can get some good closeout deals on music over at EbFlo.

The Edification of Diapers

Late the other night I was up with my 5-week old son, Ellis, trying to calm him in what has frustratingly come to seem like mere minutes between nursings, and to give my poor wife an extra hour of much-needed rest. She slept. I became the recipient of Ellis’ raving lunacy in his nearly inconsolable restlessness, and it tested not only my already aching back, but nearly every ounce of my patience as a new dad, a middle-aging man and a quietly archaic human being.

In my back-and-forth pacing throughout the house in the wee hours with the boy in my arms, I found myself wrestling with an ancient demon of mine: anger. I was angry at Ellis for not heeding my efforts to soothe him, at myself for not being able to summon supernatural patience, and at my life as of that very moment, since life itself feels more like a trial in survival these days than it actually feels like living, at least certainly not of any abundant kind. In short, I am being forced to learn how to love, because love the way earth treats it and heaven intends it is no easy endeavor. In fact, I find it remarkably difficult. As a plastic, comfortable, trendy, sugary word, love, if left alone to fend for itself as an ordinary alphabet collection, would fade into oblivion like so many ancient empires that crumbled and vanished into nothing having left little to no trace of their ever having existed on earth. When love is embodied, when it is active, it cannot fail to leave long-lasting traces of its existence on earth since it always affects more than one person. My suspicion is that love came to life because we needed it and because it desired us to bring about edification not only to a thoroughly anxious world, but to our own thoroughly anxious selves. We grow as a result of its sacrifice. Love is the revolt against self, this much I am learning.

Diapers, too, are a revolt against self just as much as they are a revolt against the sense of smell. We have been up to our noses in dirty diapers; the diaper pail proves it. Where independence once ruled our lives, absolute dependence now claims the throne. The abdication of willful selfishness. Where once we were tired from sheer boredom, now we are tired from sheer exhaustion. We sleep when we can, not when we want. Where the office once occupied the extra bedroom, my venue for conducting business has now been relegated to any quiet or empty spot I can find since Ellis’ arrival. A corporate hostile takeover. What we once considered wise, now becomes the domain of fools. What once was is no longer. It is the story of life.

Edification is defined as the building up and growing of an individual. Most times I think of edification as a noble and glorified process by which change comes from outside sources we are familiar with - and welcome - like the encouragement of friends or strangers, laughter, blooming flowers, and birds chirping. Lately, I find myself being edified by dirty diapers - heaps of them - all smelly, warm, foul and utterly human. Pampers gets a hefty chunk of my money these days. In return, I take away resolve, commitment, patience, and, God willing, a dispensation of love, where love is not always easy to give, from those piles of soiled diapers. I suspect it may require angels to summon love from within me during those moments when the demons of my self-centeredness refuse to capitulate to the helpless baby in my arms and his slow, divine way of edifying me one diaper at a time.