I haven't written much here lately, and it's because my life has become very secretive. I've never liked secrets- they create pockets of control and manipulation. Transparency and honesty are two of my favorite things. I feel that my role as pastor-preacher is "to tell the truth." My favorite genre of reading is non-fiction. I spend a lot of my day reading the news. You get the picture.
Willfully hiding information from people is not part of my persona, but it has become that way. I don't know how I could be honest and tell the truth, even though I wanted to tell the truth with all my being.
The truth is: I am pregnant. At this moment, I'm 20 weeks pregnant. There is nothing controversial or terribly unexpected about my pregnancy. My husband and I were trying. We are both overwhelmed with excitement. This baby is already very loved- by us, by his family, by my family, by our friends, by perfect strangers.
Why the secret then? Why was I so unwilling to share the news before?
1) I was terrified I would miscarry and it'd be everyone's business (or worse, some 30 weeks after a miscarriage getting asked by a distant friend how the pregnancy is going); over and over, telling everyone that I miscarried, like beating my head against a wall. Supplementing my own sense of guilt over something I did or didn't do with the whispering of others that I push myself too hard, implying that I'm unfit to be a mother.
2) Every friend who has miscarried silently and out of public view would get to watch my beautiful, healthy pregnancy go perfectly well, with daily facebook updates about how great I feel and how perfect my child will be. And then I'd post all these darling photos of a healthy little baby, a contrast to their keepsake footprints made shortly after their baby was stillborn.
The secret is over. If something happens now, it'll be everyone's business. No, it's not fair that I have a healthy little baby swimming around and other women never got to have their own. I grieve with you, even when I don't know your name. I do not mean to rub your tragedy in your face. I may still know your grief in the months or years to come. I am acutely aware of that. I know it feels like everyone in the world is pregnant right now.
***
Apparently our baby is a boy. He'll be born the 4th living generation of men- to his father, his grandfather, and his great-grandfather (who is now 97). His great-grandfather was an engineer, a Soviet officer who served in WWII, a rugged outdoorsman and gentle reciter of poetry. His grandfather is an acclaimed cellist who tours and performs in great halls around the world, who was friends with Mstislav Rostropovich, and who will cross all manner of cultural boundaries to have a conversation with another human being. His father is a professor and a fantastic violinist and conductor, a gentle caretaker whose first language is empowerment and love. What stories our son will create and share with his grandchildren! How beautiful and blessed and broken are the stories of all his foremothers and forefathers. How beautiful and blessed and broken will be my son's life.
Here is this child of my womb, a stranger to whom I am closer than anyone. Tied together as one, we are not yet separated into our distinct beings yet. He cannot be passed off to his father yet (though I sometimes wish D. could take a turn being pregnant for a while); he cannot sit in his grandmother's arms for hours yet, staring into her eyes and learning who she is and how much she loves him, this baby a part of her too.
He may not know what it means to be distinct and autonomous yet. He will one day learn. But I know what it is to be distinct and autonomous, and now here is this baby that is part of me, connected, dependent, in need of nurture and care. I have known interdependence before- it is one of my favorite parts of life. But this is distinctly new. I don't know if I've ever known birth or rebirth as much as I know it now, here in this new perspective. In a way, I always have. I have always loved people in a sense that was deeply connected; I've always been a mother in that way.
But to suddenly find myself carrying a beautiful mystery in my womb with a future and a past, who is shockingly present right here and now in that face on the ultrasound and that dancing movement I feel at night...I suddenly understand this transcendent love that I knew only in part before. And I do know only in part still.
How do you describe this great mystery of love? Such a thing is so great, we save it for poets and musicians and preachers to describe. I am a couple of those things, yet I am struck silent in approaching so great a mystery. Like the priest Zechariah, I am mute in the face of a miracle.
This son of mine is a life out of the midst of death. Truth be told, had my husband's plane not returned on the day it did, had my mother-in-law not died the day she did, had one of a number of things changed, my son would not be kicking around in my womb now. Even while I have grieved my mother-in-law's death, I have been the bearer of new life.
One day recently, while walking an outdoor labyrinth in prayer, longing to be with my mother-in-law again, praying for resurrection, aching for the kingdom of God to come, I reached the center of the circular path. I looked at the winding journey that brought me there. I realized I was in the womb of the labyrinth, carrying the seed of new life in my own womb. The resurrection of the dead is somehow inside me, growing, sleeping, moving, preparing, waiting to burst forth into this world. What better way to think of the coming kingdom of God?
This is my secret. I am the bearer of new life. But the more I sit in my mute silence, the more I realize you are all the bearers of new life. My husband and I may have implemented the standard functioning of human reproduction, as has been done billions of times over the history of the world, but it seems we have been bearing life all along. You all- you have been bearing life all along. May the life that God bears in you show you the way of the kingdom of God. I leave you with this quote from Jurgen Moltmann, from his book, Spirit of Life:
"So the essential thing is to affirm life- the life of other creatures- the life of other people- our own lives. If we do not, there will be no rebirth and no restoration of the life that is threatened. But anyone who really says 'yes' to life says 'no' to war. Anyone who really loves life says 'no' to poverty. So the people who truly affirm and love life take up the struggle against violence and injustice. They refuse to get used to it. They do not conform. They resist."
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