THOUGHTS ON PARENTS

Every man has two makers - his father and his mother, neither of whom are solely responsible for his existence.

Reproduction is for women and men a kind of self-transcendence - the natural kind.

One out of two equals the transcendence of the two, like the dialectics of thesis plus antithesis equals synthesis, or woman plus man equals child.

The child combines the attributes of the parents and is therefore precious to both precisely because it represents the transcendence of each.

Women are pretty much of a piece - they look attractive, have and raise children, continue to look attractive in order to have and raise more children, and so on, in a reproductive cycle that functions like clockwork, being, in effect, cyclically clockwise.

Liberation from womanhood would not serve a woman's purposes. A childless woman is really a contradiction in terms, even a failure by female standards.

You are made in the image, after a fashion, of your parents, nothing more. And certainly nothing less.

Christians would say they are made in the image of Christ, who is effectively God for them even if technically regarded as the Son of God, but that would only imply that they behave like Christ, not look like him.

If to be Christian is to behave like Christ, turning the other cheek, leading a nomadic existence, performing miracles, living off the land, etc., then few if any Christians ever live up to the name.