I became a father for the first time this week. The sight of my son’s face made me feel as if an anchor had been tied around my heart and cast into the ocean . There are layers of life I’ve never seen before, currents I’ve never felt.

How arrogant I’ve been all these years! As someone who opines professionally (which, I promise, takes a healthy amount of amour-propre), I find myself suddenly stripped bare of certainty, shrunken to a peanut before the immensity of what comes next.

Lord, help me see, I pray, unsure what I mean by the petition. Hope, He says. And I am unsure what He means by that.

But I do hope for things.

I hope, for instance, that the crisis of human identity will have passed by the time my son is old enough to understand such a thing. The American preoccupation with the "self" has plagued every generation since the Greatest. "Who am I?" is the defining predicament of a decadent people. I pray that my son has higher-quality problems with which to concern himself, even though it may cause him hardship over a lifetime. Narcissism is the straightest path toward a meaningless life, and I hope, above all, that he finds meaning.

I hope my son is never sent to war. But if he is, that it is not the scheme of someone who knows nothing of war himself (due, say, to debilitating bone spurs), nor by anyone with utopian dreams of a New American Century. If my son is ever sent to war, I hope it is one that must be fought and commanded by someone who understands what’s at stake for every single soldier.

I hope my son witnesses a renaissance of American arts, particularly in writing, film, and music. The drab schlock that purports to be clever by pushing the boundaries of sexual expression, as if there is any room for growth between what we currently have and full-frontal pornography, has turned the masses into dead-eyed consumers, not readers and listeners as those terms have always been understood. Twenty-first-century American art pacifies more than it inspires; it occupies and lulls the minds of the masses as the minutes of their lives neatly tick by. It does not uplift the soul or stir the conscience. It is so bereft of new ideas and talent that its business model is fueled almost entirely by nostalgia for reboots, prequels, and sequels.

And along with these hopes, I also have a grounding belief that all will be worked out for the good.

I have hope for the security of his heart within the walls of our bond — he will never be abandoned, this I know.

I have hope for the tiny New England town in which he’ll be raised and the ripples of liberty in the air that still cause a shiver on a cold day.

I have hope for the resurgence of classical education, both online and in newly formed independent schools, the seeds of which were planted during the pandemic, and, with any luck, will be in full bloom by the time he reaches school age.

I have hope for the church where he’ll learn to kneel and listen sweetly to the promptings of the Spirit. The number of committed Christians may grow small in the coming years, alarmingly so at times, but this is as necessary as a forest fire: for new life to emerge, the dead vegetation must be incinerated. For all the teeth-gnashing over the scourge of the woke, it must be said that the church has outlived far more impressive foes.

And, against all reason, I experience a very tangible sense of hope for our country, if only because this uniquely stupid era must end at some point. The current levels of intellectual and spiritual barbarism are unsustainable. We are long overdue for something great to happen, and so it must.

I believe that. Or at least I have to — for my son's sake.

Peter Laffin is a contributor at the Washington Examiner and the founder of Crush the College Essay. His work has also appeared in RealClearPolitics, the Catholic Thing, the National Catholic Register, and the American Spectator.