In preparation for the birth of my first child
I read every book I could get my hands on.
I knew the childbirth shelf at the public library
like it was my very own.
A revolving stack of books at my bedside greeted me each night,
serving as a kind of salve for my psyche,
soothing my anxiety;
like ointment for the unconscious pain
exacerbated by the fear of the unknown.
A month before my due-date
my midwife gently exhorted me
to quit reading….
And instead spend my sleepless nights visualizing a good birth.
This, she said, would do more good
than cramming more knowledge into my anxious mind.
Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus,
a leader of the Jews.
He came to Jesus by night and said,
“Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God;
For no one can do these signs that you do
apart from the presence of God.”
Jesus answered him,
“Very truly, I tell you,
No one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” Nicodemus said to him,
“How can anyone be born after having grown old?
Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered,
“Very truly, I tell you,
no one can enter the kingdom of God
without being born of water and Spirit.
What is born of the flesh is flesh
and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Labor was intense.
Though not particularly complicated.
Night time hours soaking in warm water were the best:
both in relieving the pain and inviting me to relax
into the quiet of the night.
I was entering into unknown territory,
in spite of the many books I had read, cover to cover.
To know something in one’s head is one thing.
To live it in one’s body is something entirely different.
So as the information I had gathered receded to the back of my mind,
my body-knowing took over.
I was entered into HOLY space.
Space wherein what I knew in my head
and what I knew in my body
and what I sensed in my Spirit
were intertwined and concentrated
as firmly as the umbilical cord that connected me to the life within me;
to the life that would soon be manifest as a separate being:
The life that I would always know was a part of me,
forever reminding me of the mystery of unitive consciousness;
we are fundamentally… One;
all connected.
All coming from One source.
All originating from Divine Love.
This was the place of mystery.
Of the unknown.
Of the questioning.
And of the unspoken, unacknowledged, underlying fear.
The unknown is like that.
Mystery is like that.
In the midst of the unknown, fear hovers close by.
Do not be astonished that I said to you,
‘You must be born from above.’
The wind blows where it chooses and you hear the sound of it,
but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.
So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
Hours of physical labor later,
exhausted from intense focus from the core of my being,
the holy sound of a baby’s cry sanctified the space
as my child was placed in my arms.
I looked at this tender face as this miracle turned to my voice
and I was overcome with LOVE.
I could not look away.
Wonder.
Awe.
Beauty.
Love made flesh and resting in my arms.
And in that moment,
I knew what it was to love.
For that moment, all fear was gone.
In that moment I was ushered into a new reality;
a reality of utter wonder.
A reality of profound, inexplicable love.
Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?”
Jesus answered him,
“Are you a teacher of Israel
and yet you do not understand these things?
Very truly, I tell you
we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen;
Yet you do not receive our testimony.
If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe,
how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?
One may be able to explain what happened
in that moment of birth in medical terms;
talk of oxytocin and hormones.
But what I know, I know from within:
the WONDER and MYSTERY of LOVE
are beyond explanation.
I do not know where these come from
or where they go –
but I know they are.
And I am grateful.
Because in that moment
I was born into a consciousness of Love
that transcends the physical plane.
In that moment it was as if the veil was lifted
between the physical world and the world of the Spirit
and I knew LOVE.
And from the core of being – I began to glimpse
the fundamental truth
that LOVE is the foundation of everything.
The LOVE that I had for the child in my arms as I gazed at this face
was the same power-filled LOVE that caused
the Sun to rise and
the flowers to blossom and
Jesus to rise from the dead.
This LOVE was – and is – God,
revealed in and through and as
the WONDER that fills our days …
if we have eyes to see the beauty
and ears to hear the baby’s cry in the sacred spaces of our lives.
As I alluded to last Sunday,
the particularities of that one moment at the birth of my child
served to prime the pump of an awareness of WONDER,
at all times,
in all places,
in all things,
IF I am alert to them.
In this vein, I am reminded of a poem by Mary Oliver
called “Mindful”:
Every day
I see or hear
something that more or less
kills me with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle
In the haystack of light.
It is what I was born for—
to look, to listen,
to lose myself
inside this soft world—
to instruct myself over and over
in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking about the exceptional,
the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant—
but of the ordinary, the common, the very drab,
the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help
but grow wise with such teachings as these—
the untrimmable light
of the world,
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?
No one has ascended into heaven
except the one who descended from heaven,
the son of Man.
And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
so must the Son of Man be lifted up
that whoever believes in him
may have eternal life.
The crying baby,
Jesus of Nazareth,
born into our world,
sanctifying each and every birth,
calls us to live in a new mindfulness of the LOVE
that infuses our world,
embodied in our very lives.
This consciousness,
this awareness of LOVE as the foundation of everything;
everything heavenly and everything earthly,
one and the same,
here and now and forevermore –
this consciousness is the gift of God,
to be seen and embraced and welcomed by each of us.
In receiving this gift of seeing in the Spirit –
Seeing and making the connections between
what has been and
what is now – and
what will be –
We are enabled to see
the Love that is the core of our very life –
And we are granted peace and security and assurance that:
DIVINE LOVE is not limited to this time and space.
This LOVE prevails beyond limits.
DIVINE LOVE is not defined as an emotion bound by circumstance.
This LOVE is unconditional.
DIVINE LOVE is not dependent on the whims of feeling.
This LOVE is as strong as the earth.
And let me make myself clear:
this DIVINE LOVE is not the absence of fear or pain or grief or suffering.
It is HOLY PRESENCE in the midst of suffering;
HOPE in the heart of struggle;
COMFORT in the depths of pain;
SOLACE in the center of loss;
COURAGE in the face of fear;
RESTORATION and SALVATION in the innermost space of brokenness.
For God so LOVED the world
that God gave this beautiful Son
so that everyone who believes in him
may not perish
but have eternal life.
To believe, therefore, in Jesus, the Christ,
is to open oneself to the DIVINE LOVE
that is present in body and spirit;
God incarnate;
Love incarnate.
And to trust that this LOVE prevails –
here and now and forevermore.
To believe in Jesus, the Christ,
is to trust in the wonder and mystery of LOVE –
even in the face of fear and violence and
hatred, greed, and destruction.
To believe in Jesus, the Christ,
is to believe that God’s LOVE is the force that leads
to wholeness,
to salvation,
to liberation,
endlessly revealing beauty,
endlessly restoring life,
endlessly inviting us to LIVE IN HOLY WONDER all the days and all the nights of our lives.
“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world
to condemn the world,
but in order that the world
might be saved through him.”
Amen. And may it be so.