The Risk of Birth, Christmas, 1973
This is no time for a child to be born,
With the earth betrayed by war & hate
And a comet slashing the sky to warn
That time runs out & the sun burns late.

That was no time for a child to be born,
In a land in the crushing grip of Rome;
Honour & truth were trampled by scorn—
Yet here did the Saviour make his home.

When is the time for love to be born?
The inn is full on the planet earth,
And by a comet the sky is torn—
Yet Love still takes the risk of birth.

I stumbled upon that poem while my client was laboring last Tuesday night. I always bring a copy of my favorite anthology of poems to my births penned by the Patron Saint Madeleine L’Engle (or at least, that’s how I regard her. She is my patron Saint, my spiritual mom, and my kindred spirit). How fitting, I thought, as my dear friend labored away, bringing her first child into the world during this pandemic.

As a birth worker, I’d been feeling a rising anxiety as I was watching the hospital policies change by the hour. Would I be able to attend her birth? Would her husband be able to be there by her side? It is no small trauma to ask a woman to birth alone. Women may require privacy in birth, but not isolation. The very comfort we find with God is that God is present with us in the midst of suffering. To send a woman alone to face her hours without trusted loved ones holding presence is a frightening prospect that too many women have already lived as reality.

Last week was the fifth week of Lent 2020. The theme? Called to die.

How eerie that COVID-19 is peaking in the US during Holy Week. Thousands of people died last week. More will die today. The reality of it all is crippling. And yet, this reality is crashing into yet another reality: Jesus’ journey to the cross.

Let’s read the week’s passage together, shall we?

23 Jesus replied, “The time has come for the Human One to be glorified. 24 I assure you that unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it can only be a single seed. But if it dies, it bears much fruit. 25 Those who love their lives will lose them, and those who hate their lives in this world will keep them forever. 26 Whoever serves me must follow me. Wherever I am, there my servant will also be. My Father will honor whoever serves me.
27 “Now I am deeply troubled. What should I say? ‘Father, save me from this time’? No, for this is the reason I have come to this time. 28 Father, glorify your name!”
Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”

Women who have birthed might feel that text viscerally. In the dying we bear fruit. In every birth I’ve attended thus far, including my own, there is a climax of unbearable pain or supernatural levels of pushing power before the baby is born. We must die to live.

What about all of those people dying from COVID-19? How are they experiencing new life? This is where the gospel of Jesus keeps me grounded and hemmed in behind and before. Easter reminds us that every dead thing will come to life. If not this moment, in the moments to come. If not in this reality, in the realities to come. If not in this world, in the world to come. Jesus reminds us that God is a suffering God who redeems our suffering by entering into it and making meaning of it.

We will see those who have died again in risen bodies.

I know this is intense stuff, but it’s the story I anchor my life on. And on a long enough timeline of grief and process and pain, their deaths will resurrect something new in us. And that counts as new life too. Again, as my beloved Father Richard Rohr says, great love and great suffering are the things that transform us. We will be transformed by this collective suffering.

Birth, death, resurrection.

And the world spins madly on.

This is the risk of birth: that in bringing forth life we walk to the brink of death. Or in daring to love someone, we open ourselves up to searing pain when they die. The trauma of people dying in isolation right now is very real. And it is also real that they are not alone. God is present in every prison cell, every birthing room, every ICU with a rhythmic knell of a ventilator. God’s presence hovers over the waters and brings peace over chaos. Meaning out of the meaningless.

Yes, we are called to die. But our limited understanding of death is as flimsy as the veil between a newborn baby inside its mothers womb mere seconds before she gushes out into new, completely other-worldly, life.

We are called to die…Yet love still takes the risk of birth.

The Weepies. Deb Talan and Steve Tannen have sung me through the aches and joys of my life. I’ve listened to them so much in these past weeks because they immediately conjure peace, nostalgia and calm. This song is an anchor for me when times feel out of control. Brew yourself a cup of tea, find a quiet nook of the same walls you’ve been staring at for 4 weeks and take some deep breaths as they sing you to rest.