January 22, 2014 WBAS Cat Prayers & Reflections, WBAS Topics Virtues & Values, REL Topic- Virtues/Values, REL Asset - Prayer Card, REL Catechetical - Adult
By: Kathy Hendricks
Each of my pregnancies were times of wonder, but nothing surpassed the first. Facing the prospect of motherhood was both fascinating and daunting. The latter wasn’t helped by being so far from home. Ron’s orders to report to a Coast Guard school on the east coast meant traveling across country during my first trimester. If all went as planned, I would have the baby just before he graduated from his course and was then transferred yet again. I spent most days alone in our small trailer on the outskirts of town, reading books and magazines on the stages of fetal development. With no car or television, I walked for miles around the farmland near our home. The shoots of green emerging from brown fields and baby animals scampering around barnyards resonated with my own experience of expectancy. Life then took turns I couldn’t anticipate. Our daughter was born with Down Syndrome, and Ron’s orders took us all the way to Alaska. Within a year, our sweet baby died after complications from surgery, and I found myself wrapped in another aspect of life’s mysterious cycle. Being open to life also means being open to death.
If you have been following the tale of the Grantham family on the PBS series, “Downton Abbey”, you know that Lady Mary is mourning the death of her beloved husband, Matthew. In a recent episode she bemoans the way his love changed her, making her softer and therefore more vulnerable to the anguish of loss. I can relate. Shortly after our daughter’s death, I learned I was pregnant. Once again I experienced a clash of emotions – joy over the prospect of having another baby and terror over the possibility of a terrible loss.
I learned more than I realized during those walks through the farmlands of North Carolina. “The grass withers, the flower wilts…” wrote the ancient prophet, “but the word of our God stands forever” (Isaiah 40:8). We can run and hide from the prospect of life and death, or we can accept and embrace the mystery of its wondrous nature. For me, there is no question. Choose life. It is the best of all options.
Bright Ideas
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Initiate a discussion within your family or class about the wonders and mysteries of life. What makes it easy to choose life? What makes it a challenge to choose life?
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Download my Prayer of Life, and use it in your parish or home.