The impatient child...comes home

A few days ago, little Natalie Lucia was born. In a sense this child belongs to the whole congregation of North Valley Friends. We have been cheering her on for several years, inviting her to come home. We have struggled alongside her parents, Rob and Kim Felton, in their battle with infertility, and we rejoiced three years ago in the adoption of Madeleine who came into their arms from birth. Some of us wondered if that was the end of the matter.

But God had a surprise in store, and he allowed Kim to live her dream of going through pregnancy. This was after the second adoption fund-raising activities, the months of waiting for something (someone) to turn up, and several last-minute disappointments. Then one Sunday early this year our pastor announced from the pulpit that Rob and Kim had experienced a “little bump” in their adoption plans. She then projected the scan on the screen, and it slowly dawned that the “bump” was a baby. Growing inside of Kim.

It’s been fun to watch Kim beginning to “show,” to share in the amazement and excitement.

So it was with alarm that we received the news on Easter weekend that Kim had gone into premature labor, almost too early for the baby to survive. That was three weeks ago. Three weeks of living in the neonatal intensive care unit, on-and-off IVs, constant monitoring, praying for time. Again, this has touched our whole congregation.

But she’s here, seven weeks early, but healthy. She even seems plump in her photo. She’ll stay in the hospital until sometime in June, but she appears to be thriving. Those few weeks apparently were vital.

Here’s a prayer/poem I wrote three weeks ago (one that was answered).

To the Impatient Child
(a poem that is really a prayer)

 Little one,
your time will come,
but not today.
Soon, you will come out
of hiding and greet
the world with a yell,
but not just yet.
Soon, you will meet
her face-to-face,
the one you only feel
now, blood-to-blood,
swimming in liquid love,
moving with her
in a dim warm space.
Soon, you will meet
him, feel his heart
beat as he holds you
to his chest, pats
your back, hums,
but not now.
It’s coming soon,
believe me--
real air on your face,
light, colors, music
and a whole open place
of people who will receive
you with so much love
you’ll need time
to take it all in.
And time is what
we’re asking for now.
So rest easy, settle back,
let yourself grow.
A world of wonders approaches.
But not today.

North Valley discusses human sexuality

After the prerequisite silence
we move forward, “carefully
and without inappropriate pressure.”
We seek a sense of the meeting
on matters of sensuality,
worshiping as we walk
through a mindfield of words.
Pacifists on tiptoe, we wonder
whether bonding comes before
procreation as the meaning
of marriage, decide it does.
Consensus on which distortions
to include eludes us. Should
we even mention distortions?
We try to map out “the journey
toward healing,” define sexual
wholeness without the naming
of parts or positions.
After an hour-and-a-half we
have no unified statement but
we’re all still friends. Maybe
that’s enough. Maybe it’s not.
Who says Quakers don’t
speak in tongues?

A child's take on the Trinity

Several years ago our grandson came home from Sunday school with some questions on his mind. He said to his mom, our daughter, “I don’t get this stuff about the Father, the Son and Andy.”

“Who?” Kristin responded. “Who’s Andy?”

“That’s what I’m asking you,” Reilly pointed out.

Kristin tried unsuccessfully to get more clues out of Reilly, and finally succeeded later in the week when she overheard him singing one of the old hymns of the church, part of the Sunday school’s program to teach kids the basics of the Christian faith. He was singing, “In the Garden,” and the chorus of his version was, “Andy walks with me, Andy talks with me, Andy tells me I am his own….”

Reilly had apparently used six-year-old logic to come up with the names of the Trinity. The Father and Son were concepts he could at least relate to, and he knew their names: God and Jesus. But Spirit is a more elusive concept for a child, so he figured that must be the one called Andy. It still didn’t make much sense.

It reminds me of the story of the Japanese gentleman who was trying to understand Christianity. He remarked to his American friend, “Honorable Father I understand; Honorable Son I understand; Honorable Bird I do not understand.”

Many of us struggle to understand Honorable Bird. The concepts of the Trinity and its most mysterious member, the Holy Spirit, don’t fit easily in the brain. And the Bible doesn’t give us clear logical definitions.

It does, however, give us images and stories, and that’s where I begin to see “with my eyes of my heart.” Images such as breath of God, wind, still small voice, flowing water, and the picture of the Spirit hovering over the dark chaos in the beginning of time, waiting for the Father to whisper, “Light”—these draw me to the third person of the Trinity more than any doctrinal statements could do. Intuitively, I begin to understand.

Reilly got part of the picture right. Children frequently do. The Holy Spirit seems to be that aspect of God that “walks with us and talks with us and tells us we are his own.”

And whatever we call him (or her), including Andy the Honorable Bird, or the Holy Ghost, the Spirit personally draws us into the presence and reality of God. Then words and labels and definitions cease to matter. Life touches Life and we walk free as a child in the winds of grace.

Poems of resurrection

John 20:1-18

Missionary, apostle to the apostles,
beloved friend of Jesus,
tears still wet on your face,
it was love that thrust
you forth, joy that gave
your feet wings, wonder
that filled your voice
with gospel. Woman of God,
pure and trembling one,
you will remember always
his voice, “Mary,” forever
calling your name, “Mary,”
causing you to run
from the garden to the city,
from Jerusalem to Bombay,
to Barcelona and Cleveland,
to Cochabamba and Kigali,
telling us all,
“I have seen the Lord!”

John 20:19-31

All doors being closed
you came and stood
among them. Even now you
defy our doors and doubts,
choose to stand
in our midst. Glory.

Holy Week poems

 “I am he” is the seismic center.
It spreads in expanding rings.
The bodies fall outward,
circle a setting sun.
Torches, lanterns, weapons,
a bloody face, arrest
and betrayals spin,
but the center holds.
Even so, night deepens.
Even so, this unbearable cold.
(John 18:1-27)

 
*******
“What is truth?”
the politician asks,
not sticking
around for an answer.
The question hangs
in the air while
the man born
to be king awaits
his coronation
in silence.
(John 18:28-40)

 
*******
Out of the pierced side
of the God who is dead
flow all the terrors
of all the nights
the rapes the abductions
the children lost and
the mothers mourning
sirens and sleeplessness
thunder in far off places
the confusion of the archangels
and all my tears, all my sorrows
carried in the stream
that flows from his side.
(John 19:28-42)