Speaking to a very tired mother and a most elated father last night, I felt their overwhelming happiness and delight. My sister and my brother-in-law’s longing for a child has been fulfilled. Mom’s joy too is profound, as is her relief that Geri had a safe delivery. Everyone in the family is beaming in the goodness of this gift of new life in our midst. Indeed, he is a happy sight to finally behold.
He is a handsome baby—Carl said ecstatically over the phone—as he should be, named as he is for the quiet but assuring spirit of comfort and rest his name promises for all who seek.
There were times yesterday when I was anxious, particularly as it took Glenn more than 10 hours after the first contractions to enter the world hale and hearty. At times like this, I do find it tough being far from home as a religious missioned to work overseas. Yet time and distance diminished when news of Glenn’s birth crackled over the phone: for that one shinning moment, I felt present with everyone back home, sharing in this most grace-filled event.
My prayer before sleeping last night was one of immense gratitude for God’s goodness and kindness to Geri and Ken and the family. Indeed, God has unveiled his countenance in the face of this new born babe. God has made real his faithfulness to all of us, not only to mother and father and family but to friends and others who will hear this news and remember that His Love is always with us. We can recall this truth because each new birth originates in love, as the future of each new born babe is always nourished by and realized in the love of parents and family, and all these human acts of loving do nothing more than re-create Divine Love in our midst.
In Glenn’s birth, God reminds us too that the gift of life is itself, paradoxically, the most precious and the most mysterious of human experiences. No matter how much medical science and biology class can explain conception, gestation and birth, they can never account for the basis of human existence with absolute certainty. Yet, Philosophy has helped me appreciate that we exist because our being in the world, and in relation to one another, is itself the gift of being from the One whose Being simply is. And as I think of my own life, and of Glenn’s that will unfold in the coming years, I cannot help but appreciate this gift of being as an invitation to emulate, as best as we can, and precisely because of the finite reality we inhabit, the One whose Being we are freely bestowed with. Indeed, it is because of this gift that each of us will always experience in daily life the wonder of new life beginning and new life coming into its fullness in time.
As I write this, I find myself thinking ahead to the many and real possibilities awaiting Glenn as he matures. These are possibilities each of us in his life—parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts, friends—is now being invited to help him discover and actualize in the reality of this one time and space we have, human existence, as we know it.
This invitation speaks to me of accompanying Glenn and the new family his coming to be has brought to life, always, even as the reality of my Jesuit vocation can mean being apart from them for many years. It is however in the sharing of life as family that we are never apart, always near and dear. And nothing reminds me better of being family than God’s own faithful companionship in the family we are.
Welcome to the family, my nephew!
photo by anne geddes
Add a comment