New Birth

In this time of darkness and the onset of winter, we celebrate once again the story of birth: the Christ child and all the magic and mystery of that, and we celebrate the birth of light – new light, not the same light of last year, or even of yesterday, but a whole new light, a new season, a new self.  As we reflect on the year that’s passed, and the place we find ourselves in now, are you where you thought you would be? How has the year changed you?  Challenged you? Surprised you? Does the story ever turn out completely the way we imagine?

As parents know, birthing a child into the world--and the many ways it transforms us--is a lot more than what we expect. The daily challenge can’t be known prior to its coming into being, nor can the wealth of profound love and joy. I remember an evening when John River was about 7 or 8 months old, pre-verbal.We were up in the night together after a feeding and I sat with him cradling him and we sat gazing at each other and smiling.

I thought I had never seen such an exquisitely pure and beautiful being in all my life. I asked him, “Where did you come from?” And right at that moment, he pointed his tiny starfish hand at the tip of my nose and said with perfect pronunciation, “You.” I would have to say it was the first word he spoke, but I cannot explain it. I laughed out loud and tears welled in my eyes. It was a miraculous moment, a moment that felt to me like God’s hand had reached out and touched me.

In reflecting on it, I realized, as mystical as his response was, there is more to it than that. Yes he comes from me, but more as a stopping-over place. Where he comes from is much, much greater than this individual. Kalil Gibrain states it poetically, “your children are not your children, they are the sons and daughters of life’s longing for itself…they come through you but not from you, and though they are with you, they belong not to you.”

As we give birth to the new in our lives, whether it be a child or a creative project, a new job, a relationship, a garden, our faith reminds us that it is God being born in the world, God coming through us, beauty being expressed in and through the human form. As the song, “This Night” goes that my beloved wrote, “We tell the old story that brings us together, the light of the child that is born anew, deep in our heart, the memory: Love is in the world this night, a chance to recall, once more a chance to begin.”

Once more, a chance to understand that we are not the sole creators, we are the co-creators. We are not the proprietors, we are the borrowers, the stewards. We are not residents, we are visitors, here for a short while to be the mystical-physical channel through which goodness and generosity come to transform this world.

In this way, we can stand aside and stand in awe and deference as we bear witness to this miraculous and precious life. And we can release our burdens to our creator and rest in the knowing that we are not and cannot be alone on the path. May the peace of God’s light that surpasses our understanding give each of you comfort and a joy in the season ahead.              

Rev. Katherine Silvan