This past 4th of July was rather more special than usual. While the rest of the country was 
winding down barbeques, settling into lawn chairs, and waiting for fireworks shows of varying splendor to begin, my wife was giving birth to our fourth living child, a daughter we named Vesper. We’ve gotten quite used to the hospital routine when bringing babies into the world, and having already three other children at home, there wasn’t a whole lot new that we encountered. It was a brilliantly simple delivery and everything went well.
Hospitals are usually quite good at giving information to first time parents, explaining things like diaper changing, feeding with breast or bottle, swaddling, etc. In fact, they do this even when its your second, third, and yes, fourth child. Which I totally understand, and wasn’t even bothered about until a nurse stood over my shoulder while I was changing my newborn daughter to make sure that I was doing it correctly. That got annoying. Diaper-changing is basic, simple, not a difficult skill to master, and I’ve done it countless times.
I imagine that my diaper test annoyance was nothing compared to the bother my wife felt at the numerous people explaining to her how to nurse the baby, even though she’s quite experienced with it and is herself a consultant to other moms who are having trouble with getting the hang of the skill of breastfeeding. Let’s just say that more than one lactation consultant has been banished from my wife’s room during her various childbirth experiences.
But there are times when the basics of parenting are easily laid aside, like when there are distractions, or when we’re angry, or other vicissitudes invade. In the hospital there were numerous videos, pictures, and pamphlets exhorting parents not to shake their babies, or not to smoke around them, and yet their very ubiquity indicated the fact that there are times when these most basic of parenting instructions are laid aside. Like many other lessons of life, the lessons of parenting a newborn can be easily ignored, and we can behave as though we’ve never even learned them.
Like the lessons of caring for a newborn, there are circumstances in my life that keep 
reoccurring. One exigency or another comes up, and when it subsides I feel like I’ve finally graduated from the School of Hard Knocks. And as soon as I feel that way, something else comes along to, shall we say, reinforce the recently learned lesson. It can be bothersome, annoying, frustrating, maddening. But there are lessons to be learned, not as propositions to be apprehended but as certainties of soul deeper than intellect. This is one of the reasons I appreciate being part of a Christian tradition that is liturgical. In the repetition of prayers, creeds, Scripture readings, actions, and gestures, habits of soul can be formed on a level deeper than mere lessons memorized.
So I’m learning to be patient with relearning the simple lessons of life, the ones that are all around me and keep coming up. I need the reinforcement of a repeated lesson, the habits-of-soul wrought in ubiquity, and the formation that can only come from matriculation in the School of Hard Knocks.
