"Look at that, you can see his heart beating!"  The day was Tuesday January 8th - the setting was the doctor's office - the experience was seeing the first ultrasound of our 9 week old baby. 

Few words can express the wonder and the weight of that experience. A first time father, trying to digest the reality of a little human being carrying my DNA and living in the belly of my wife!

I have seen some breathtaking views of alpine peaks in Switzerland and the bold quiet falls in Yosemite, but no sight has ever stirred the feelings I felt gazing at that little mass of wonder within my wife.

I'm a father. Not I will be a father in August when the baby is born. I am a father! The thoughts of support raising, the days activities and responsibilities, not just faded but vaporized in light of that experience. The significance of life came clearly into focus and I felt a large shift in my identity that is hard to explain.

I no longer existed for the glory and enjoyment of God alone although that is my highest purpose, but I had come to acquire a new and significant identity as a father!

So begins the journey of fatherhood that is pressing me to consider the roots of masculinity found in the truth of the beginning of masculinity; "then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature." (Genesis 2:7)