How is it possible that a baby can come out of your body? This is on my mind, having just experienced it for the fourth time. It is barely any more comprehensible to me than when I was anticipating it happening the first time. So wonderful when it's over, you don't by any means want to go back and do it over, but your mind keeps going back again and again to when it was happening, to an experience so mysterious, the rising up from darkness of an until-that-moment hidden human person. You understand what David meant when he said his body was formed in the depths of the earth, in the secret place, and he was known even there, but not by his mother. Only God sees into the womb, all our technology notwithstanding, fathoming the infinite worth of one human child, heretofore nonexistent. Here I am; all I can do is stare at her face, which I could do for hours, in wonder. Where did she come from? What kind of miracle caused her emergence from non-being to being? Could one act of love cause this flesh and blood reality? Dear God, I pray it was an act of love and not boredom or angst! I'm afraid the Catholics have it right. An activity that has the potential to create the existence of a human being is not for merely recreational use, even between spouses. To block its life-giving potential is to trample holy ground. And certainly to destroy its fruit, no matter at what early, tiny stage, is to blaspheme the sacred. I think you can tell all you need to know about a society, and about a person, by their attitude toward children. Should there be fewer of them? Should their presence and even their existence be conditional on our convenience?
It sounds narrow and close-minded, even to a lot of my conservative friends, to question the idea of birth control. But I do have an inkling the Catholics are onto something here. It does beg the question, I mean, whatever is sex for anyway? It might be worth exploring the idea of it as a holy encounter, with each and every meeting bearing a potential life force. That is how real the giving of ourselves is meant to be. Love is meant to be so substantive it can actually take on flesh and live and breathe and make a mark on the world. This view might be worth exploring, to find out if it is limiting or freeing. Perhaps the most expansive freedom is found in limiting ourselves. Maybe we are only really free when we are free to forget our own convenience in the ecstasy of pouring ourselves out as Gift, when we are free to be like God and can participate in his divine life, which is self-giving. When a pianist has limited himself by hours of study and practice, then he is free to play anything he wants on his instrument, even the most soaring and beautiful intricacies, unimaginable by the beginner playing "Here we go, up a row, to a birthday party." But even that simple tune is sweet in its humble attempt to become better.
This is part of what is drawing me to the Catholic Church, to the ancient faith. Yes, I am saved by faith in Christ. But life in Christ doesn't end with my profession of belief. Life in Christ only begins there - it continues on as I practice and practice becoming more like him, so I can truly be prepared to one day enter and enjoy his divine life, so I can begin to enter it here and now on earth. Because of course, dying to yourself doesn't feel like ecstasy at first. And look at me, I don't even have the right to say much about such things at all. I'm not even to the point of self-renunciation. Looking at Mother Teresa makes me cover my face and bow my head. No, I'm still stuck on not watching too much tv and not eating too much ice cream in the evenings. To truly give Christ everything, to do something really special for love of him, what does that even look like? The question is - what does it look like for me? That's all I need to know. Each of us will answer that differently. My answer has something to do with these children of mine, and even before that with this husband of mine. What can I give up today, just a little more than yesterday, for them, out of love for Jesus? The answer has something to do with laundry and the dishes and undivided attention and a little less fiddling with my iPhone. Can I give up just a little more, and just a little more, and even beyond that, take pleasure in nobody noticing it? For a world-class diva like me, someone who is pretty sure she knows how most things ought to be done (and who is usually right!), to submit my will, to obey just for the beauty of obedience, to, for love of Christ, let things be done a little less than ideally, that will be a miracle when I see it happen. I can try just a little more, just a little more, each and every day.
I wanted John William to have a brother. But something told me I was going to have a girl. For one thing, I come from Girl-Girl-Boy-Girl-Girl (I'm the second Girl), and so far, I've been replicating that quite exactly in my own family. And then in the days leading up to Carolina's birth, I felt strongly she was going to be a girl, and it was like a voice saying, "This child is going to be a boon to you." I already have a sense of the grace she has made manifest, and it is apropos that her middle name is Grace. She is like an extravagant nonessential lying over there in the easy chair on her belly, with her cheek squished up by her eye and her lips pursed out, sleeping away. She is like an extra, like a liberality, a grace note. I didn't need her. She was lavished on me. And I can't stop staring at her face, soaking her up, wondering where she came from. It's a full-time job.
(2012)
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