Dear Friends,
I am thinking of you always and was reminded this week of each of our humble but spectacular beginnings. I was admitted to the hospital overnight after more signs of imminent labor (luckily again the contractions have subsided). While at the hospital on the ante and post-partem floor I was awakened by the most joyous sound. Babies crying at the top of their lungs! Yes, never before had this sound been so full of music, a cry of hope sent out into the world. It reminded me of the prayer we pray over our baptized children—that they will find their voice and that the world will never silence it. (Crying during my walk-about in the aisles, some of our children proved this wouldn’t be a problem as long as we were there to witness it!).
The newborns’ cries reminded me of the message of this season and one of the prophecies of this week that I will use as I light the 4th candle for Peace. “For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given. And the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9:6-7). As I heard those cries, I understood the peace that God creates in and through us. Christ embodied and lived out peace from the moment he took his first breath (and wail) to the moment he took his last. This peace is not an absence of chaos, it is not a mastering of our needs, it is not a protection from our pain, but it is a stillness and faith inside all of these things. It is a sense that our being is eternal, even as our reality is fragile. This is the blessing I heard in the cries of those babies who were somehow both newly born and already eternal. It is also the blessing I received from Rev. Nancy Talbot’s description of the prayers and vigil she and his family had planned for the passing of our brother, faithful member and father, Marvin Deloatch, after a long battle with throat cancer. As hospital staff took Marvin off the ventilator, his niece laid white lilies over his legs and torso and those present gave over their prayers and goodbyes, leaving Marvin, Nancy, and his niece, Zosara to wait together in his final breathing hours.
Back in bed with a calm body, I have returned to a peaceful state, but the Peace offered to me through the Christ born this season, through the child fighting inside me, and through the crying newborns reminds me of the great power each life holds inside it. The power to bring a true and enduring peace even in the midst of struggle is present in all of us. Never before have the words of the season, “For unto us a child is born,” been so potent and multivalent for me, for I am reminded that in every life and in every moment, no matter the circumstances, the potential for this peace is born.
I share with you a prayer from Ted Loder, Methodist minister and activist, that someone sent to me to help me find peace and to calm my labor pains. I wonder if there are not things you labor over or pains that plague your peace for which this prayer can calm.
“Gentle me, Holy One, into an unclenched moment, a deep breath, a letting go of
heavy expectancies, of shriveling anxieties, of dead certainties; that, softened by the silence, surrounded by the light and opened to the mystery, I may be found by wholeness, upheld by the unfathomable, entranced by the simple, and filled by the joy that is.”
Just as I prayed that those new mothers would recognize those high-pitched cries as the voice of peace! I pray that the peace and joy of this season is born in you, if even for a moment, a breath, and a letting go. Love, Beth
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Rooted and Grounded in God
Dear Friends, December 3, 2009
Advent has begun again, which means the season of “waiting” has begun. My experience over the last 6 weeks has had me asking if there ever is a beginning and an end to “waiting.” Or is it something that we are more conscious of some times more than others? On Sunday, technically the first day of this season, I thought my waiting was over. I went to the hospital with signs of early labor. We have in many ways been expecting this. Six weeks ago, we were told we would never make it this far. Six weeks ago, we were advised not to risk waiting and to say our goodbyes right then. We packed a hospital bag and prepared a liturgy to mark a stillbirth. Every week since then, we have still been preparing these goodbyes. In many ways, David and I understood that to say goodbye then was a good and moral choice as good and moral as the decision to wait and let things run its course. We believe that God is present in all situations—life and death, salvation and suffering. But something led us to keep going. For me, it was my calling as a pastor and how it prepared me for that moment. I thought of each individual in the pew. What would I do if it were one of you faced with near unbeatable odds? Well, I’d sit, wait, and be present. What else could I do? In our training, David and I spent a summer together as chaplains. During this summer, we were called to sit at the deathbeds of strangers to be there as they took their last breath, especially if that was too hard for their families. In those rooms and in the acting out of sacred presence, we slowly became aware of the flow of life into death and its rhythm as essential to our entire being in God.
In our waiting, we have wrestled with what it means to have our life in God. Is there some essential quality that makes this apparent or as it is our temptation to ask during hard times, are there circumstances that suggest its absence? Our doctors have been mirrors for these questions as they too discussed “quality of life” with us. Through these conversations and in talking to close friends and family, we have stumbled upon what we are affirming for the new life begotten in us, often through what we could not fully affirm.
My first doctor was an adept and respected obstetrician who offers many healthy women the perfect birthing experience as he had for me with my son, James. While leaving his office I was reeling from the recommendation as a young mother of one to essentially cut my losses and try again, I passed by his collection of black and white photographs or celebrity mothers and daughters, many nude or idyllic in the style of famous photographer, Annie Leibovitz: Blythe and Gwyneth, Demi and Rumer, Whoopi and her pregnant daughter. As much as I desire the perfection they represent, a perfect life was never the promise I could believe in or make to another living being. If anything, it was in the imperfect that I had found promise in life.
We found a new doctor who did not make any promise of miracles but committed to wait and see things through with us. He led us to two other specialists with interesting paths and points of view. The neonatologist had witnessed miracles in her intensive care units but she had also had three miraculous pregnancies. The first son came back from a sudden and near fatal heart failure in his first day of life. The second contracted a rare virus at 7 weeks gestation, which showed brain lesions on all sonograms indicating he would not have cognitive or physical capacity. The third tested positive for Down syndrome. All were born and continue after over fifteen years to be healthy with no traces of their initial diagnoses. In her NICU, she started a separate hospice wing for families needing to say goodbye with dignity. Her hospital seeks to offer parents the option to see difficult pregnancies through to difficult ends. She told us we would have a “peace” with our decision because we had allowed God’s will into it. As inclined to accept her comfort as we were, I could not agree as she explained how in life, there are those who are at peace because God’s will is in their decisions and others who she proposed are depressed because they do not. In the world around me, in the choices we faced, I did not see the either/or she perhaps unintentionally set up.
In every step, we have seen God’s will. In every life shared with me, I witness God’s will whether or not we allow it. God is continually present and transforming each moment of our lives within and outside of the choices we are making. God will not be left outside.
Finally, we saw a specialist that had actually seen cases like ours, though only a handful. The specialist we saw had a store of other views. Having seen more cases like ours than any other doctor in the city, perhaps country, he presented all the medical information and ethical considerations in a calm and considerate way. He emphasized the importance of our perspective in all this. He even traced how different traditions viewed life and its beginning. Because it is highly probable that our child will not be able to breathe on her own, the account of how Orthodox Judaism considers life to begin with the first breath was both beautiful and frightening. God breathed life into matter and made Adam. Whereas a Catholic, like our neonatologist, believed it began at conception. Both ideas filled me with awe and fear. I realized “When?” was not the question for me. Somehow, along the way, life grew and I became aware that I had been entrusted with that life. The best and most merciful way to honor life would always be a question. My guiding question was not a matter of “when” but “how?”
Then he revealed something closer to his vest. He said that psychological studies had documented how unreliable accounts of “quality of life” are in cases where prenatal risks did result in disabilities. Those with disabilities always reported the highest quality of life, their parents reported good estimates but with regrets and the physicians, which he termed, “the most objective,” reported the lowest quality of life for the patient. There was something about this discussion that made me feel “quality of life” was not an objective measurement to be defined by medicine alone. I felt myself agreeing with the right to our first person account of the quality of our lives.
This led me back to the sense I was having about how to answer how our life begins, is sustained and “ends.” My answer in that moment, which I believe to be consistent with my answers in most moments when I am pushed, is expressed in the Ephesians passage I have been meditating on for 6 weeks. “You are rooted and grounded in God.” This is my mantra this week as we cross a precarious threshold staring down the corridor to viability, morbidity (another ill-chosen medical term) and mortality. In God, we just are. It is not about when we become nor when we cease to be. It is not about if we breathe or if we cannot breathe. It’s not about if we choose God’s will or it is chosen for us. We are rooted and grounded in God. This is the sacred presence God offers my child. To root and to ground is the way David and I have felt called to be its parents. As we sink deeper and wait longer, we realize, this child roots our feet on the path and grounds our hearts further in faith. And as you, our congregations, patiently wait alongside your pastors, giving us space for lightness and food for nourishment, you ground us too.
I pray in this season of Advent, that you all feel rooted and grounded in love.
Blessings,
Beth
Advent has begun again, which means the season of “waiting” has begun. My experience over the last 6 weeks has had me asking if there ever is a beginning and an end to “waiting.” Or is it something that we are more conscious of some times more than others? On Sunday, technically the first day of this season, I thought my waiting was over. I went to the hospital with signs of early labor. We have in many ways been expecting this. Six weeks ago, we were told we would never make it this far. Six weeks ago, we were advised not to risk waiting and to say our goodbyes right then. We packed a hospital bag and prepared a liturgy to mark a stillbirth. Every week since then, we have still been preparing these goodbyes. In many ways, David and I understood that to say goodbye then was a good and moral choice as good and moral as the decision to wait and let things run its course. We believe that God is present in all situations—life and death, salvation and suffering. But something led us to keep going. For me, it was my calling as a pastor and how it prepared me for that moment. I thought of each individual in the pew. What would I do if it were one of you faced with near unbeatable odds? Well, I’d sit, wait, and be present. What else could I do? In our training, David and I spent a summer together as chaplains. During this summer, we were called to sit at the deathbeds of strangers to be there as they took their last breath, especially if that was too hard for their families. In those rooms and in the acting out of sacred presence, we slowly became aware of the flow of life into death and its rhythm as essential to our entire being in God.
In our waiting, we have wrestled with what it means to have our life in God. Is there some essential quality that makes this apparent or as it is our temptation to ask during hard times, are there circumstances that suggest its absence? Our doctors have been mirrors for these questions as they too discussed “quality of life” with us. Through these conversations and in talking to close friends and family, we have stumbled upon what we are affirming for the new life begotten in us, often through what we could not fully affirm.
My first doctor was an adept and respected obstetrician who offers many healthy women the perfect birthing experience as he had for me with my son, James. While leaving his office I was reeling from the recommendation as a young mother of one to essentially cut my losses and try again, I passed by his collection of black and white photographs or celebrity mothers and daughters, many nude or idyllic in the style of famous photographer, Annie Leibovitz: Blythe and Gwyneth, Demi and Rumer, Whoopi and her pregnant daughter. As much as I desire the perfection they represent, a perfect life was never the promise I could believe in or make to another living being. If anything, it was in the imperfect that I had found promise in life.
We found a new doctor who did not make any promise of miracles but committed to wait and see things through with us. He led us to two other specialists with interesting paths and points of view. The neonatologist had witnessed miracles in her intensive care units but she had also had three miraculous pregnancies. The first son came back from a sudden and near fatal heart failure in his first day of life. The second contracted a rare virus at 7 weeks gestation, which showed brain lesions on all sonograms indicating he would not have cognitive or physical capacity. The third tested positive for Down syndrome. All were born and continue after over fifteen years to be healthy with no traces of their initial diagnoses. In her NICU, she started a separate hospice wing for families needing to say goodbye with dignity. Her hospital seeks to offer parents the option to see difficult pregnancies through to difficult ends. She told us we would have a “peace” with our decision because we had allowed God’s will into it. As inclined to accept her comfort as we were, I could not agree as she explained how in life, there are those who are at peace because God’s will is in their decisions and others who she proposed are depressed because they do not. In the world around me, in the choices we faced, I did not see the either/or she perhaps unintentionally set up.
In every step, we have seen God’s will. In every life shared with me, I witness God’s will whether or not we allow it. God is continually present and transforming each moment of our lives within and outside of the choices we are making. God will not be left outside.
Finally, we saw a specialist that had actually seen cases like ours, though only a handful. The specialist we saw had a store of other views. Having seen more cases like ours than any other doctor in the city, perhaps country, he presented all the medical information and ethical considerations in a calm and considerate way. He emphasized the importance of our perspective in all this. He even traced how different traditions viewed life and its beginning. Because it is highly probable that our child will not be able to breathe on her own, the account of how Orthodox Judaism considers life to begin with the first breath was both beautiful and frightening. God breathed life into matter and made Adam. Whereas a Catholic, like our neonatologist, believed it began at conception. Both ideas filled me with awe and fear. I realized “When?” was not the question for me. Somehow, along the way, life grew and I became aware that I had been entrusted with that life. The best and most merciful way to honor life would always be a question. My guiding question was not a matter of “when” but “how?”
Then he revealed something closer to his vest. He said that psychological studies had documented how unreliable accounts of “quality of life” are in cases where prenatal risks did result in disabilities. Those with disabilities always reported the highest quality of life, their parents reported good estimates but with regrets and the physicians, which he termed, “the most objective,” reported the lowest quality of life for the patient. There was something about this discussion that made me feel “quality of life” was not an objective measurement to be defined by medicine alone. I felt myself agreeing with the right to our first person account of the quality of our lives.
This led me back to the sense I was having about how to answer how our life begins, is sustained and “ends.” My answer in that moment, which I believe to be consistent with my answers in most moments when I am pushed, is expressed in the Ephesians passage I have been meditating on for 6 weeks. “You are rooted and grounded in God.” This is my mantra this week as we cross a precarious threshold staring down the corridor to viability, morbidity (another ill-chosen medical term) and mortality. In God, we just are. It is not about when we become nor when we cease to be. It is not about if we breathe or if we cannot breathe. It’s not about if we choose God’s will or it is chosen for us. We are rooted and grounded in God. This is the sacred presence God offers my child. To root and to ground is the way David and I have felt called to be its parents. As we sink deeper and wait longer, we realize, this child roots our feet on the path and grounds our hearts further in faith. And as you, our congregations, patiently wait alongside your pastors, giving us space for lightness and food for nourishment, you ground us too.
I pray in this season of Advent, that you all feel rooted and grounded in love.
Blessings,
Beth
Strengthened in Inner Being
For background on my journey of 11 weeks of bed rest after my membranes ruptured prematurely at 17 weeks 6 days. (For more info on this occurrence pProm, see kanalen.org/prom).
Dear Friends, November 10, 2009
I continue to be thankful for all of the love, cards, and prayers you are sending to support my family and each other. My husband, David, remarked that what amazed him the most was the expansiveness and diversity of the prayers people are sending. They reminded him that there are so many ways we could be blessed by our current situation no matter what the outcome is. Since I stare at the same four walls everyday, I feel particularly blessed that your outreach is a unique expression of who you are. Your cards are a patchwork tapestry hanging by my bedside reminding me of the faces I miss. As I pray for the special life inside me, the greatest gifts are those that remind me of the unique beings God grows in all of us. I have appreciated all sentiments from the profound to the practical.
Many have joined us in praying Ephesians 3:14-21. My godmother wrote to say she had memorized it within the week. I must admit as often as I lean on this verse, I cannot commit the whole thing to memory. Instead, certain phrases resonate with me and live in my mind and body like mantras. Recently, it has been the phrase, “strengthened in your inner being.” Truly, I pray as many do who are sick, for physical strength. I hope my womb will be healed. But I have realized after four weeks that this might not happen. The obvious miracle may not come; God’s work is yet to be revealed. Until then, we wait and wait, and become accustomed to the reality of our situation--either nothing changes or it gets worse. I remarked on this to a close friend who is a pediatric cardiologist and asked, “How can you stand it? Either you know it is bad or you don’t know what it is. As a doctor so often your options are to deliver “no news” or “bad news.” She laughed at how often that was true. And said, “What I do is not so different than you, Beth. I practice medicine because I want to be there for people no matter what their situation is. And in being there, I want to give people hope.
My original midwife jokes with me often after some particularly pessimistic prognosis, that it’s okay, “because you believe in divine intervention anyway.” I’ve had to correct her when she suggested this is the reason I’ve stubbornly gotten as far as I have. It is not divine intervention that I expect to swoop down from above and defy medical statistics. Instead I place my hope in the “strengthening in our inner being,” the unexplained healing in the “no news” of medicine that I know to be possible in our body, in our minds, but even more in our spirits. This strengthening is happening to me each day. I do not have to wait for it. I wake up amazed that my inner being is still going, that we are as strong as we are that day. The strengthening does not show up on the weekly ultrasound or the blood tests. But it shows up in my prayers and in yours, in the meals and the notes, the emails from strangers on internet support groups who’ve experienced what I am, and all the ways God keeps our inner beings engaged, strong, and making new or deeper connections.
I pray for you all as individuals and as a church body. I am aware that the Apostle Paul wrote his letter to a whole church body that needed strengthening. I take strength from the amazing ways you are coming together to strengthen the inner beings of the church and of each other.
With Love, Beth
Dear Friends, November 10, 2009
I continue to be thankful for all of the love, cards, and prayers you are sending to support my family and each other. My husband, David, remarked that what amazed him the most was the expansiveness and diversity of the prayers people are sending. They reminded him that there are so many ways we could be blessed by our current situation no matter what the outcome is. Since I stare at the same four walls everyday, I feel particularly blessed that your outreach is a unique expression of who you are. Your cards are a patchwork tapestry hanging by my bedside reminding me of the faces I miss. As I pray for the special life inside me, the greatest gifts are those that remind me of the unique beings God grows in all of us. I have appreciated all sentiments from the profound to the practical.
Many have joined us in praying Ephesians 3:14-21. My godmother wrote to say she had memorized it within the week. I must admit as often as I lean on this verse, I cannot commit the whole thing to memory. Instead, certain phrases resonate with me and live in my mind and body like mantras. Recently, it has been the phrase, “strengthened in your inner being.” Truly, I pray as many do who are sick, for physical strength. I hope my womb will be healed. But I have realized after four weeks that this might not happen. The obvious miracle may not come; God’s work is yet to be revealed. Until then, we wait and wait, and become accustomed to the reality of our situation--either nothing changes or it gets worse. I remarked on this to a close friend who is a pediatric cardiologist and asked, “How can you stand it? Either you know it is bad or you don’t know what it is. As a doctor so often your options are to deliver “no news” or “bad news.” She laughed at how often that was true. And said, “What I do is not so different than you, Beth. I practice medicine because I want to be there for people no matter what their situation is. And in being there, I want to give people hope.
My original midwife jokes with me often after some particularly pessimistic prognosis, that it’s okay, “because you believe in divine intervention anyway.” I’ve had to correct her when she suggested this is the reason I’ve stubbornly gotten as far as I have. It is not divine intervention that I expect to swoop down from above and defy medical statistics. Instead I place my hope in the “strengthening in our inner being,” the unexplained healing in the “no news” of medicine that I know to be possible in our body, in our minds, but even more in our spirits. This strengthening is happening to me each day. I do not have to wait for it. I wake up amazed that my inner being is still going, that we are as strong as we are that day. The strengthening does not show up on the weekly ultrasound or the blood tests. But it shows up in my prayers and in yours, in the meals and the notes, the emails from strangers on internet support groups who’ve experienced what I am, and all the ways God keeps our inner beings engaged, strong, and making new or deeper connections.
I pray for you all as individuals and as a church body. I am aware that the Apostle Paul wrote his letter to a whole church body that needed strengthening. I take strength from the amazing ways you are coming together to strengthen the inner beings of the church and of each other.
With Love, Beth
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