There is a line in a Celtic newborn baby blessing that says, the lovely likeness of the Lord is in thy pure face. At some intuitive level of understanding, beyond the conscious, I know that it is true; I think its why I love being the family birth center chaplain; there are all these tiny people, fresh from God, and theres still a trace of the Creator visible on their souls incarnation, and if you look with rightly focused eyes, you can still see it. Its a sacred space. Its magical in the are/not yet world of persons. They are not yet who they will become; what kind of person he is, how the world will shape her, but they are fully persons. They are who they are but that hasnt been revealed yet, hasnt been uncovered. They are becoming even though they are. As a hospice chaplain I visit a memory care nursing facility in Sacramento. I was there today. I saw Gene and Donna and Laurie and Yuan. Donna, a tiny woman, she might weigh 80 lbs, lays on her side in her bed, always, and is curled on her side, always, reminding me of a newborn. She doesnt speak, ever, but she moves her mouth like shes nursing. I was playing music for her today, Samuel Barbers Adagio for Strings (it is a beautiful, calming piece) and as I was staring into her eyes I wondered where shed gone, the person she was. Shes in the process of unbecoming. All that she was and felt and thought has drifted away like a chalkboard being erased and now shes an unknown. Just like a baby. Laurie was sitting in her wheelchair in the hall. She talks but its like the talk of a toddler. A few words are intelligible, but mostly, its indecipherable. Today I understood she wanted water. I got her some and just like I would with a toddler, I helped her drink. When she was done, she smiled at me and I got it and I knew that in her unbecoming who she was I got a glimpse of the lovely likeness of the Lord in her pure face. Shes a person, but not the person she was. A newborn is a person but not the person she will be. And if you look carefully, you can see the mark of the Creator in each of them. How precious the gift of life, and I am blessed to see the fullness of the miracle.
Posted on: Wed, 31 Dec 2014 01:22:46 +0000
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