Doors That Close

One morning this week, Marco said, "I like having doors that close."  His father recently planed our hinky, old doors so that we now have a bedroom door that shuts completely, as well as a bathroom door that actually gives one the privacy one would normally be grateful for in a bathroom.   Our son's room, however, still doesn't quite shut completely, which appears to be a metaphor for so much of what lies ahead.   

I am feeling hopeful about doors.  I've been given a gift these past few weeks of pregnancy.   At 34 weeks, I was diagnosed with something called "polyhydramnia" which means I have excess amniotic fluid.  So far, here at 38 weeks plus, it's yielded little more than a weekly ultrasound and a weekly non-stress test, in addition to my weekly check ups.  And that little door into my womb gets pushed open every week via the ultrasound.  It's a miraculous, almost unbelievable view.  There is a child, a human being, fully formed, lots of hair, moving, rubbing his eyes, his face, oh-my-goodness touching his forehead with his...foot??, sucking, breathing, eyes popping open, mouth moving and grimacing.   He is, without a doubt, the most beautiful child I have ever seen.  And I long for him to get here.  I ache to hold him, smell him, look at him, rub my lips on his skin.  And what's cookoo, is that he is inside me, closer than he'll ever be again. Ever.

  

My therapist once said to me that she wished she could put her 18 year old daughter back in her womb for a while.  And every new mother I've spoken to recently says she misses the feeling of the baby moving inside her.  My husband seems envious of the experience.  It is truly (and sometimes, literally) breathtaking.  

And I can't help but think of Mary, carrying the Son of God inside her own womb.  Was Jesus a restless fetus, anxious to get on with it so He could get back home to Dad?  Or was He a quiet One, already contemplating the enormous life ahead of Him, relishing the safety and comfort of His mother's womb?  What was her pregnancy like?  Did she have morning sickness?  Did she cry when she gave birth?  How long was her labor? Did she spend nights wondering what this child would look like? Who did Jesus look like? Has anyone ever thought about that?  Who did He resemble?  His mother?  His Father? I bet Mary's neighbors whispered about it..."That child does not look like the carpenter, Joseph..."  And yet, we know nothing, other than she received the angel's message of her imminent, supernatural pregnancy gladly, as holy as a human could respond, and that she pondered all these things in her heart.  (Oh, her young girl heart, how enlarged, shattered and ultimately healed it was to become.)  

Both a Christian and an atheist mother mentioned to me within the same week that babies tend to resemble their fathers in the first year or two of their lives.  The Christian chalked it up to God's way of protecting the mother's reputation and confirming the patrimony and responsibility of the father.  The atheist chalked it up to evolution for basically the same reasons.  So here I wonder:  did Jesus look like God the Father?  Yet, "he had no form of comeliness that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him." (Isaiah 53:2)  What does this mean about the face of God?  What does this mean about my ideas of beauty?  

Fully human and fully divine.  In a way, I get it now in a different way than I did before: this merging of infinite Spirit with finite, yielded flesh to create the Christ. God is so mysterious, so vast in His ways.   Who am I to have been graced to partake in something divine, something my Lord partook in, something He shares with every single mother who has ever walked the planet?  The responsibility, the utter miracle, the sheer magnitude of it, are overwhelming.

  

So these doors that close and those that don't- they allow for movement or give us pause, give us glimpses into the Other Room, allow us to walk into that new space, or stop us dead in our tracks.  I feel as if I'm straddling an old space and a new space - who will be waiting for me in the Other Room?  Who will I become when I cross that threshold? 

 

I'll keep you posted.