Canon Watson Kushner
Red Egg and Ginger Party, October 15, 2011
Yeh Yeh Ng
Canon is almost 10 months old and he is already busy babbling words that we are trying to imitate. Sage and Story can mimic the sounds quite well and for some mysterious reason, Canon seems to understand. As the youngest in his family and probably the youngest in the entire Ng family, he is living up to his namesake—canon means lots of words!
The word, “Canon” means a general law, rule, principle, or criterion by which something is judged. When Canon babbles, his sisters are judged by how well they can copy his sounds. When Canon cries for his mother, Lauren and she obeys and comes to his aid, she is being judged by him on how much she loves him! When Canon is fingering and touching every new thing that he can reach out for and we end up telling him not to, we really can’t judge him because he is so much like his Daddy who does the same thing and eventually became an industrial designer so that he can manipulate and design high-end guitar bags.
Another meaning of “Canon” is a collection of sacred books or a set of literary works considered to be permanent or established as being of the highest quality. As the youngest member of the family, he will eventually inherit all of the best or highest quality children’s books that Sage and Story pass down to him. At the end, he will be the one to decide which of these storybooks will be saved as the most meaningful books for all three kids to keep. But even more importantly, as the youngest member in the birth order, Canon will learn how to sit quietly and listen to all of the things that will happen to Sage and Story first and will discern for himself what will be the best stories to remember and keep.
In some cathedrals, a member of the clergy is known as a canon. It’s not coincidental that his mother is a minister and that one of the most important canons that Jesus Christ taught us is to love God with all of our heart, mind, and soul and to love our neighbors as yourself. We hope and pray that as Canon grows up with his family, with his friends, and in the church as a community of disciples, that he will come to know God and to love God and his neighbors.
As adults, we live with the hope however naive or fantastic that the world will become better as the result of who and what the next generation will do and be. We faithfully and joyousness bestow upon children like Canon and Sage and Story, Evi and Gavin and Sebastian, Madison and Parker and Quincy, Anaya and Sol, and Samantha and others who will come into the world and all of the children in our midst that they will do a better job than we have done and have another chance to bring healing when there’s suffering, union where there’s division, and peace where there’s war. We have the audacity to pray and hope that such a world can begin to take place with an almost 10-month old baby, named Canon with high expectations on him to change the world.