If you’re not careful, you’ll miss it. But if you can catch it? Well, it’s a pretty holy thing.

On the Daily Stoic podcast recently, Josh Brolin (a great episode, check it out), talked about how watching his kids learn and grow is almost his version of going to church. What others receive from attending mass or even meditation, he said, he gets from observing his children’s “sense of newness and discovery and awe” as they move through the world.

I’m not bullshitting when I say that. I’ve always felt that it’s such a gift that I’ve been given, being able to be the parent to my four children.

In fact, after he said this, we read back to him a particularly striking passage from his new memoir From Under The Truck (fittingly about his own messed up childhood) about this very thing:

There is nothing so pure as the young, who are just beginning to awe at that investment of a breath and slowly, so painfully, realizing how the breaths of their passions hang in weight, just out of touch, into their maturity that solace will hide with only a yearning scent of milk left in the air. But there they are. It is there your own sense of character to be cultivated.

That is the gift of children, the gift of being a parent. It’s what makes all the sleepless nights, all the yelling and screaming, all the pickups and dropoffs and running around worth it. In fact, as Josh told us, “You go through all that insanity in order to be more present for the gift. The gift is right there. You don’t have to seek it.”

Amen.

P.S. Josh Brolin’s memoir From Under The Truck is full of insights like this about the beauty and joy of being truly present with your kids, as well as the wisdom our children have to teach us if we open ourselves up to receiving it. You can grab copies over at the Painted Porch.

You can also hear Josh share more about his remarkable acting career, his journey to sobriety, and how he learned to re-parent his own inner child on the Daily Stoic Podcast. Watch on YouTube or listen over on Apple and Spotify!