Welcome to this place

If you're of a certain age (and, probably, a certain gender: this one's for the boys, primarily), there might be, tucked away somewhere on a CD rack or shelf, a copy of Creed's Human Clay. You likely haven't played it in a while, and you might even feel a vague embarrassment, now, at owning it. But you needn't: in its day, it was one of the top-selling albums of the late 20th century, and as of 2012 it had sold a whopping 11.5 million copies. In other words, it's not only on your CD rack.

But whether you own it or not, you might recall the album's most popular ballad, an uplifting tune called 'With Arms Wide Open.' Again, it was hardly an obscure song: it won a Grammy, in fact, for Best Rock Song. But 15 years is a long time, and it's not like Creed is on the radio these days, so we thought we might refresh your memory by pointing to one passage in particular. Scott Stapp, the lead singer, is singing about his first child's imminent birth, and he's imagining the ways in which he might greet his little boy:

With arms wide open
Under the sunlight
Welcome to this place
I'll show you everything

Well, then. Stapp's growling vocal style can feel, nowadays, a bit embarrassing - but in its day, it was completely typical. And, against such a common ground, the song thus stood out primarily for its lyrical sensitivity, rather than its superficial aggression. Show you everything? We were more used to Nirvana preaching a sort of numb rage, and suddenly we were being prompted to think about children and their needs.

I'm not sure what Stapp had in mind, when he sang those lines. But I will agree with him, that one of the most fundamental joys, and challenges, of parenthood is that simple, amazing ability - or, better, responsibility? - that we have to teach our children. At times, it's a simple pleasure. (This, child, is gravity). At others, it can be complicated. Today, for instance, I found myself reading 1 Samuel in order to teach Cleo the story of David and Goliath - and learning, in the process, that it's a remarkably complex and allusive narrative. (And violent: as she put it, after we read that and the account of the birth of Moses, "A lot of people die in these stories").

And then there are the times when it feels almost transcendent. Today, with Cleo out of school for the day, I figured I would take her down to the local elementary school, to give her a look at what she'll experience in the fall. As we neared the school, her initial excitement gave way to nervousness, and when we ran into a neighbor her face was firmly buried in my shoulder. Slowly, though, she opened, like the tulips in our front yard, and soon we were looking at the various pieces of artwork visible in the windows. You don't need to be ready for it quite yet, I told her - but in about four months, you'll know a lot more about this place than I do. And at that, she smiled.

Welcome, Cleo, to this place, and that. I'll never be able to teach you everything, but it's been a blast trying to show you at least a sliver of what's out there.