I’m scrolling through Facebook tonight and my good friend Mark has posted a sonogram of a fetus inside the womb of the woman he loves (Anna) and joy breaks out across my face!
I and my friends have had enough death this year. I don’t need to list the people who have died in the last year. Their names are written in pieces throughout my blogs. And needless to say what’s left of Oklahoma and Newtown’s populations are no doubt looking for good news.
While they probably don’t know Anna and Mark in those places , there are no doubt pregnancies and births happening all around THEM as well. They sneak into our lives as part of nature, quietly enough that the news doesn’t pick up on it.
Here in West Hartford , even though the streets are flooded, the grass is still green. Though the rains come , my friend Char can still post pictures of rainbows because there still ARE rainbows.
Yes, I’m sure that global climate change is still happening. Yes, the government still is reading our email. Yes, Turkey is quelling riots by force. For the most part those are the things we are in charge of.
But the cycles of nature are full of grace, despite our best efforts. They may not be as intense as the evening news cast, but nature’s beauty cycles have a quiet dignity and beauty all their own.
As much as I see the worst of what people can be, it is times like this that I am reminded that good people also impact the world by bringing children into the world and there is hope because of their influence. Good people raising spiritually beautiful children in the universe is also part of the world’s grace and a real joy to us, despite the world they are apparently brought into.
On days like this, I remember the good things in life — “I tell you that not even King Solomon in all his regalia was clothed as beautifully as this”, Jesus said about nature and it still is true.
My wife recently posted a picture of my two daughters when they were a toddler and a baby. They are now 14 and soon-to-be 12. They are beautiful and smart and talented and funny because they just are. Friend post on Facebook that their children are graduating from High School or College. How do these things happen? These things happen quietly, too, because we — like nature itself — put in a continual bit of energy and it grows in grace — the mystery of God’s will engaged in the world with or without our help.
My point is that sometimes we get lost in the pain and the destruction because they are so frequent and loud. Beauty and grace are just as frequent but nowhere near as loud and all it takes is the potential of a fetus to remind us … Just sayin’.
Congrats to Mark and Anna.
Peace ,
John
Because It Matters 