Winter Evensong

Today is a day of sharp contrasts--of light and dark, warmth and cold, of stillness and wind. The sense of change in the air has made the dog nervous and he licks his lips as the wind howls through the trees. I brace myself in case of tree and limb fall—the wind carries with it the possibility for destruction at the same time I nudge the thermostat up a degree and curl my toes beneath me. The puddles ripple in the wind and I know that, come night, they will turn to ice. I dread the coming cold and the already cold. The cold that penetrates through to the bones and the night that seems to come earlier and earlier each day. Yet, the sun broke through the clouds and I remember last year and the year before—all years in which I began to believe that I would never be warm again. Years in which the dying grasses and fallen leaves seem to possess an unrepentant barrenness. New life seems impossibly far off and the storm perches like the silhouetted cormorant above the water. The contrast of life and death is suddenly all too real. Winter has come.

Advent Paradox

God we cry out to you
For love
For redemption
And that is the promise you have given

We didn’t take into account
Reality.
Love and redemption
Do not eliminate suffering.

Rather, they accompany it.
And in the midst of suffering,
We find that you are there
The weeping, suffering Christ/Spirit/God

Whose love can only witness
To the true hope
That awaits us only
In death.

"The Womb of Advent"

Last year, at this time, I was angrily putting away the book The Womb of Advent written by Mark Bozutti-Jones in which we uses his own family’s pregnancy and impending birth as a foil for reflecting upon each day of Advent. I just couldn’t do it, I couldn’t read about the joy (and fear) of pregnancy and child birth when my own heart was so broken and my own womb so empty.

What a difference a year makes…and now I get it. Now I understand what I didn’t last year (altho’, for no good reason, I’m still a bit angry at the aforementioned author!) that anticipating this baby is like anticipating Christ--terrifying and joyful—fearfully and wonderfully made—within but not without, yet. But, I am sensitive to the reality that my own joy is another's pain and was once my own. So this Advent I pray for those who long to become parents yet find themselves still waiting, watching and hoping.

At the same time, this joy that was so (seemingly) long denied brings me full circle. This new awareness of Advent is rather like my first spring after my first long, cold winter. When I saw the first snow drops bloom I accepted that it would (despite all evidence to the contrary) be warm again and that life would return to the landscape. With that realization everything I’d ever intellectualized about the resurrection burst open. I suddenly felt the resurrection with a sharp awareness of grace that I still cling to each February/March when I begin to feel the despair of the coldness clinging to my bones.
And, now, I feel the impending birth in a way that goes beyond the ability of the mind to comprehend. Preparing a place for this baby in our lives and our home consumes us—much as I am sure the impending birth of the baby Jesus consumed his young mother.

I did not and do not want this to be a “pregnancy blog”, yet perhaps I need to accept that in the midst of pregnancy there is little else it can be. Perhaps this peculiar consumption is what I need to get my head around the reality that things that once were are no more and things that are not will be? Attempts at rational thought may occur—but realize that they are mere attempts—for the irrational part of me is contemplating the kicks felt yet unseen and pondering what motherhood will mean for us both.

For, just as Advent warns…this is truly the end of all that we have known and the beginning of a new life for us all.

moving and a shaking

I'm settled into my second trimester now and the wee one has started making his/her presence known with intrauterine gymnastics. I have started to feel better and more "like myself" in the past couple of weeks and it has made it easier to think and do things apart from dwell on the state of my uterine occupant and the physical bizarrities of pregnancy. It is also a huge relief to have gone public with my pregnancy--having secrets is really not my strong suit and I very much appreciate the prayers and support. All of this means that...

Sermon writing has become MUCH easier--now I can sit and think about the text without feeling the need to google things like "stretchy feeling in uterus". It has also allowed my prayer life to evolve a bit beyond "PLEASE GOD LET THIS BABY STICK!!!" And, I don't feel the need to lay down for a really long nap every day (just some days) which allows me to actually get a few things accomplished!

This doesn't mean that I'm not sometimes obsessively thinking about pregnancy and the seemingly imminent transformation of our family from 2 to 3. Nor does it mean that my worries have ceased...my prayers are still peppered with "PLEASE GOD, MAY THIS BABY BE HEALTHY AND I PRAY I DON'T GET SWINE FLU BEFORE THE VACCINE KICKS IN" but also include victims of violence, our health care system and the various needs of those I serve in my congregation.

In many ways I have begun to feel "whole" again and I am now able to enjoy things like the inspiration that led to my last sermon (more on that another time, but needless to say I am still reflecting on the fact that it is our responsibility to see to the resurrection of those, like the widow who gives her "mite", whose happy endings are not depicted in the story) and the joy of a long walk in the woods (during what would have previously been "nap time"). It also means that I am able to write again, one of my dominant first trimester maladies being a fierce case of writer's block! So, thank you (if there are any of you left to read this after several months of quiet on the blogging front) for your patience--and I will see you in the blogosphere!

To come: the widows from proper 27B; Episcopal Church polity and me; and Advent anticipation...

Pregnancy and Facebook

So, one of the challenges of pregnancy has been keeping folks from finding out via facebook--which is less of a concern now, obviously, then it was during the tentative days of the first trimester. With family, friends, parishioners and friends of friends as "friends" on facebook I wanted to avoid being outed by those in the know before I was ready for everyone to know.

Having worked in a children's hospital I am more than a little conscious of the fact that a healthy baby is not a guaranteed outcome of pregnancy. I have no reason to believe that this baby is less than healthy or this pregnancy less than viable--yet, I also know the innumerable tragedies that can befall our little family in the months to come. So, letting my extensive group of contacts know that we are expecting has been a leap of faith which has been incredibly difficult to commit to.

Yet, pregnancy is something that can only be hidden for so long before it becomes a tad bit obvious that something is up. It's a very public kind of vulnerability and, as a priest I find that I am having to trust those with whose care I am entrusted in new ways. By letting my congregation share my joy at this new life I risk having to let them share in any pain that may come. I have to let them care for me through this journey and support me if things do not go the way we all pray they will. I don't find that caregivers tend to be very good at accepting care (altho' I have a wife who would make it clear that I am VERY good at accepting her care, perhaps a bit too good!) and to do so entails a mutuality that I find daunting. What, trust YOU with the care of my soul?

But, perhaps this is the very risk I need to take...perhaps my fear of vulnerability needs to be challenged and, for the next while, perhaps I need to just accept the loving (and sometimes overbearing) care as it is offered. Perhaps I need to be able to say, yes, I trust YOU with my soul.

The Pregnant Priest

Now that I am 13 weeks and 4 days pregnant (yes, we know the EXACT day!) I think it's safe to tell you that the major project I'm working on has been a new human being! It has been a delicate dance these past months as we've told family and our close friends while still feeling that it was not yet time to tell the parish. So, we announced to the congregation today which was a wonderful thing--what a loving and dear group of people attend Church of Our Saviour! I can tell already that this is going to be a church baby...

That said, we do ask for prayers for a safe and healthy pregnancy and the safe arrival of baby C around his or her due date--April 21st. We by no means assume that all will be well (too much time in a children's hospital will do that to a person), but since all signs would indicate that all is currently well we are working to trust that this baby will really share our lives (plus the obstetrician thinks he/she looks great and tells us that everything is as it should be--so maybe I should trust her?).

I reflected with some musings on all of this a couple of weeks ago and wanted to share them here...

It's a strange longing, for the abstract in both cases, for the oft' times surreal presence of a loving God and the equally surreal presence of the small being who shares my body. My love for both feels all encompassing yet I have it only on faith that I will someday dwell in the loving arms of God or hold my babe within my own loving arms.

At the very tail of the first trimester I have seen the child kicking and waving in the grainy screen of the ultrasound machine while the cool gel coated wand glides over my abdomen. Yet, like the remembrance of the Christmas child in the last weeks of Pentecost, I begin to wonder--was it real, is it real, will it be? It's a strange realization that my hunger for a God who can be so difficult to see from day to day is matched only by my hunger for the child who is, just as much as God, a member of a world filled with the already but not yet of all that is promised.

So, I pray for my baby and for my God. I pray the prayer of a woman who is already a mother but has not yet held her child; and that of a child of God who finds it easy to forget that I have always been held by God. Telling the world of the baby in my womb and the God who fills my heart demands a leap of a faith that can be frightening--yet keeping the secret of this love troubles my soul and as my heart and head become encompassed in anticipation, love and fear, it becomes more difficult to hide the reality that I have indeed been transformed.

It is a miracle. Truly.

apologies for the station break

My apologies to all three of you who read my blog :) I've been working on a major project the last couple of months and blogging has fallen by the wayside for a bit. I'll be attempting more regular postings but my mind is rather occupied elsewhere at the moment! Ciao for now.