Once upon a time, far, far away there lived an old chipmunk. He was a master gardener, and many chipmunks came to work with him and then went off to start gardens of their own. He believed everyone would want to be a gardener, but, alas neither his daughter nor his son showed the slightest interest.

It would seem impossible to work this out because the more the old chipmunk boosted gardening, the more the little chipmunks resisted. The daughter chipmunk said that one of her friends who had graduated in gardening was now catching beetles for minimum wage and another was digging tunnels for rabbits, which was exactly what he did before he learned gardening. The son chipmunk said nothing at all and just went off to gather wild berries, which he ate or gave away.

Then one day the old chipmunk's wife gave him some seedlings to plant. The old chipmunk was amused and later irritated because they grew so slowly. Sometimes he would pull on them so that they would get the idea, although he always taught his gardening students not to do that.

One morning his wife called him over to inspect the new plants more closely, and he saw that indeed each was delicately formed and quite lovely except for the bruised places where he had pulled on them. "They are not like I thought they would be," he said to his wife. "I guess they decided to be themselves." His wife answered, "Chipmunks aren't all alike either," she added. (Abe's Fable, from The Illuminated Life, by Ab Arkoff)

We have a tendency to hold our children back, to make them in our image, to set expectations for them that are not in sync with who they are. But quickly Jesus' life is being changed. Forged by this identity of who he is the Son of God not the son of Mary and Joseph. It's hard to let go as a parent.