Waking Up to the Miracle

When we bring a child into this world, we are participating in something extraordinary. From the moment they are conceived, babies bring with them questions of awe and mystery. If we are lucky, their unfathomable creation and the love they engender will help us awaken to the awesome creativity and potency of life all around us.

When I had a baby, I realized that I was living in the middle of a miracle. Now, I do not use the word “miracle” lightly. I mean it in the sense of an overflowing experience of the divine boldly breaking in to my life in such a way that it altered my previous understanding of reality itself. I could not ignore this miracle: it happened right in and through my own body! With only the slightest involvement from me and my husband, microscopic cells merged deep within by uterus. They multiplied by powers of magnitude within days, and before it could barely seem possible an entirely brand new human being was being formed within my body, complete with a spinal cord, a head, skin and eyeballs. For forty weeks this unfathomable process continued without me needing to so much as push a button, write a line of code or design a single hair. She was there, within me, getting perfectly formed by the awesome biology of human design.

The miracle continued when my baby was born. My body knew when it was time to go into labor. My body knew how to let go of the placenta, stop feeding an umbilical cord and start producing breast milk, basically all at the same moment. My baby knew how to nurse. But even more than all that, there she was: my daughter. She had ten fingers and ten toes. She had blond hair and blue eyes. A brand new human being had issued forth from my very body and was now living in the world with a soul and personality. And I experienced this twice.

Whether we have given birth to our children or received them through adoption, when we raise children we are living in the middle of a miracle. To witness the birth and growth of a human being is one of the most mysterious and awesome experiences of life. If we open our hearts and minds to this miracle, we will begin to see the divine all around us.

If my child came into being in such an awesome way, we might say, then every single other person in this world also came into being in a miraculous way. If there is something fantastically good about the human creation that is my child, there is something fantastically good about creation itself. This goodness, perfection and wonder that we witness as parents is an intrinsic aspect of life. This is the way we are created. The entirety of the whole divine-human-natural creation is nothing short of astonishing.

Parenting calls us to wake up to this miracle. It reminds us not to take things for granted, not to get in a rut, not to project our same old tired and defeated assumptions on the world. It calls us to awaken to the wonder that surrounds us, not only in our parenting, but everywhere in our lives.

Parenting brings up questions of who we are, where we are, what we are doing here and how we should love. And with these we enter the realm of spirituality. With an open and loving heart, we find that parenting can open the doors to contemplate and find clues to the whole mystery of God and humanity.

How do we wake up to the miracle? The links between parenting and divine mystery aren’t (usually) revealed by visions of angels or in email messages from God. We have to be alert to their subtlety. They come from being present, and from noticing. A little voice peeps up from the back seat of the car and asks a question that touches your heart. The after-bath routine devolves into an ebullient tickle session of giggly, squirming flesh, and you notice the fullness of your heart. A human body that a short time ago did not exist anywhere on earth is now enfolding you in its arms and loving you.

Let us remember to stay alert to the wonder of the divine that arcs its way through our everyday lives. Let us open our hearts and minds and see what our children and God might have to show us today.

How does your parenting call you to stay awake to God’s presence?