Meeting the Theotokos in the Hospital

I was doin’ my chaplain thing this week, sitting with a patient’s family while they waited for news about their loved one, and I happened to mention to one of them (let’s call him Hank, which is not his real name) that I’m also a doula and a blogger on things birtheology-related. A couple of days later, I had a chance to swing by and check on this family, and Hank stopped me and said that he had googled my blog (“It’s an internet world,” he said), and he had a suggestion for me. Turns out Hank is Eastern Orthodox, and when he saw my blog, he immediately thought of this:

Or something a lot like this, as this is what I found when I googled what he described to me. It is an icon, which (put simply) is a religious work of art, often used in worship, but not as an object of worship. Eastern Orthodox Christians venerate (that is, regard with reverence or respect) icons, but this veneration, as Bishop Auxentios explains,

must be understood as a veneration rendered not to a thing (or person), in and of itself, but through the thing to that which sanctifies it—ultimately, of course, to God. We honor the Cross, therefore, because of the One crucified on it. We honor a Saint because of Him whose friend the Saint is.

This icon in particular is of Mary who is here depicted as the Theotokos, which is a Greek term most precisely translated as birth-giver of God.  In this rendering, Mary is pictured facing the viewer with her hands raised in a position that is both a posture of prayer and a reminder of the posture Christ took on the cross, here reflected by the tiny fully formed Jesus in her womb. This icon is meant to capture Mary at the moment of the Annunciation, when she gave her Great Yes to God, submitting to her role of God-bearer. Veneration of the Theotokos is a big part of Eastern Orthodox Christian practice. According to Dr. David J. Goa (who by the way, looks like THIS!!→)

When Orthodox Christians around the world enter the church, they bring a candle to this icon and, bowing in a prayer of gratitude to God who clothed them in flesh, ask that they, too, like the Theotokos, may be open to be a birth giver of divine love in a fractured and suffering world.

This is a prayer uttered by all Orthodox Christians regardless of gender or age, because this vocation to give birth to divine love is one that all Christians share. It’s like the good Dr. Goa says:

The mystery of the Incarnation of God in Christ is our mystery, a revelation of our created nature and a call to its fullness,...[thus] the Icon of the Virgin and Child is...the Icon of the Human Vocation. It reveals to us our capacity as persons, as women, men and children.

I believe that the Incarnation is not only something Jesus did once, but something that every Christian is called to do daily: to bring God into this world of flesh and blood. We are to say Yes to God, and allow Christ to be born in us, just like Mary did. This reminds me of the sermon Julie Pennington-Russell preached at my ordination, in which she stated that this woman who became the mother of Jesus was “no Milquetoast Mary,” but instead an incredibly brave and faithful person. Each of us who are serious about bearing Christ within us and bringing forth the light of God into the world ought to take her for a model of faith.

When Hank was telling me about the Theotokos and the significance this icon has for him and for his fellow Orthodox Christians, I lamented that Protestants lost so much when we decided to stop really paying any attention to Mary.  He replied that we “threw out the baby with the bath water–no pun intended!”

I couldn’t agree more.

A Liturgical Calendar Pop Quiz

What are the three main Christian feast days?

(hint: a feast day is a high point of religious observance and celebration in the life of the church)

Did you even know there are three? You can name two, anyway, even if you haven’t been to church in a while, or didn’t pay too much attention even when you were there.

There’s Christmas.

And Easter.

Those are the two everyone knows. But the third major feast day, the only one not completely co-opted by popular culture, and therefore known only to die-hard liturgical calendar fans (yes, we do exist) is: Pentecost. Now you know.

Pentecost was celebrated this past Sunday. It is observed 50 days (7 weeks) after Easter and commemorates the coming of the Holy Spirit to Jesus’ apostles. As my three-year-old learned in her Sunday school class, “It’s the Church’s birthday!”

That got me to thinking. ALL THREE of the main Christian feast days are about birth. No really. Christmas is obviously about birth. The actual, physical birth of Jesus, to be precise. The other two are metaphorically about birth. Easter commemorates Jesus’ return to life, or re-birth, you might say.  Plenty of people have already made connections between the tomb and the womb.(Though I think that is the stuff of another post entirely.) And now Pentecost is another metaphorical birth, this time of the church, as it begins to move from being a loose group of Jesus-followers to an organized religion.

So–if the three high points of Christian life are about birth, then it follows that birtheology is not just for mommies and babies (in case anyone out there was thinking that). Christmas, the actual birth of Jesus; Easter, the metaphorical rebirth of Jesus; and Pentecost, the metaphorical birth of the church: these three events are central to the Christian faith.

Birth is central to the Christian faith. 

And if birth is central to the faith, then we’ve got some work to do in uncovering a theology of birth. This means examining what birth is, how it affects those who participate in it (both women and men, both those actually giving birth and those who support them), what it teaches us about the life of the body, soul and spirit. This is true even if we are “only” regarding birth as a metaphor, since to understand a metaphor one must first thoroughly examine what it refers to.

For whatever reason, we as Christians have largely neglected to give serious thought to this central element of our own faith. But that’s all about to change, y’all. Keep reading, and keep commenting–there will be more birtheology to come!

Introducing: Birtheology

Here’s an idea I’ve been kicking around for a while: I’ve been frustrated, annoyed, even angry that though women often describe giving birth as a spiritual experience, there is not much out there in the way of connection between religious belief (specifically Christian, as that is my faith tradition) and childbirth.  I have searched and searched, throwing the weight of my considerable research skills (gleaned over the course of 11–yes ELEVEN–years of higher education) and have come up with…not so much.

A good part of what I have found has focused on submitting to one’s proper place as wife and now mother in “God’s plan” for the family and on praying hard enough (i.e., “Having fertility issues? You are just not praying hard enough. Experiencing pain in childbirth?  PRAY HARDER.”).  That’s pretty much all I’ve found in the way of popular literature/blogs, and honestly, I don’t find that these views accord with my own experience of how God works in the world, nor do I find them particularly empowering.  In scholarly literature, there have been a couple of voices over the past 30 years or so who have called for a theology of birth.  From what I can tell, that idea hasn’t made a lot of progress.  I’m not sure why that is, but perhaps it is because there are not many scholars who have both the ability and inclination  to reflect theologically on childbirth.

I approached my own experiences of giving birth by intentionally minimizing medical interventions in an effort to enhance my own physical, emotional and spiritual experience of the process.  So, I had these holistic birth experiences,  AND I am trained to think theologically.  There are not so many people who fit that description.  Thus, I find myself in a unique position: I am an ordained minister, a birth doula, a theological scholar, a mother.  I can write about this, I can make connections between theology and birth, and I can further the (so far) limited conversation on this topic.  So, I introduce to you, dear reader, my new venture in blogging, in theology, in life:

(credit for the catchy title goes to my incredibly creative, talented, and supportive husband, Thomas)

I hope to use this space to work out some thoughts as I prepare to lead a seminar on this topic at my church in the fall.  This seminar will be geared not just toward pregnant people, but also to the whole congregation.  Birtheology is not just for women having babies, and the church as a whole has essentially ignored this transformative event in the lives of the majority of its members for too long.  Ultimately, I would love to put together a childbirth education class for parents as well, with all the usual stuff about the stages of labor, medical interventions, pain management, etc., but also with a focus on the spiritual elements of giving birth.  Of course, publishing some of this good stuff in a journal, magazine, or book some day would be pretty awesome, too.

So, keep reading!  There will be lots more to come.  And of course, if you have thoughts/experiences to share, I would love to hear about them.  The more voices we can add to this void the better

Super Grover 2.0: Incarnational Theology for Doulas, Chaplains, and You

This morning over breakfast, while my kids were getting their dose of Sesame Street, I remembered an essay I wrote while I was doing my chaplain residency. For those of you who watch, oh, I don’t know–THE NEWS, or some such grownup programming while eating your cereal in the morning, I offer this by way of introduction to Super Grover 2.0:

Admit it. You were entertained.

Anyway, a big part of the chaplain residency I went through back in 2010/11 involved undergoing some pretty intense reflection on how to become a better pastoral caregiver. I have said all along that the skills I developed in the process of becoming a chaplain are the skills I find most useful as a doula: that of being fully present for the person I am serving, and trusting that I have within me what I need to be an emotional and spiritual support for my client/patient. I think that as a doula it can be awfully easy to fall into the trap of thinking, “I won’t be fully prepared to serve  my clients unless I learn this physical comfort technique or read up on that medical intervention or acquire certification in [insert birth related field here].” And that’s not to say that I should not or am not continuing to sharpen those kinds of doula skills. I am. But I think the reason caregivers focus on that other stuff is because showing up–being fully, completely, totally present for the person whom you are serving–is actually really, really difficult to do. Gena Kirby, a doula who travels the world leading workshops on the use of the rebozo in labor, brought this idea up not too long ago in a Facebook group I follow:

I have noticed over the years that doulas who take my classes sign up to learn how to DO stuff to clients. They want to know how to augment, how to move baby, how to…you name it. These questions really put the DO in doula. I wish we were BE las instead.

Being a BE-la, being fully present for another person, particularly when that other person is doing something really intense, like giving birth, or preparing to die, is super hard to do. Which is why I wrote this essay, slightly modified below, in which I offer, by way of inspiration, a superhero unlike any other.

I bring you Super Grover 2.0.

Sesame Street has been on the air for 44 years, so I am assuming you all are familiar with the show. Super Grover has been around since the 70’s, but unless you have been watching in recent years, you may not be aware that, like most everything, Super Grover has had an upgrade. He is now Super Grover 2.0! Each of his sketches now begins with this intro:

He observes.          He questions.          He investigates.

Super Grover 2.0.

He shows up.

And each sketch follows a similar format: somewhere in the world, a muppet is in trouble. Super Grover 2.0 swoops in with the inevitable crash landing (flying is no problem, but apparently landing is not so simple). Then there follows a series of interactions in which Super Grover is of little to no help. He makes several attempts to solve the muppet’s problem, but these serve only to pass the time (in a comical way) while the muppet who originally had the problem discovers its own solution.

For example, there is the chicken stuck on one side of “The Pretty Good Wall of China” who cries out, “I just gotta get over this wall, I just gotta!”

Super Grover crash lands, and asks, “Why do you want to get over the wall?”

“To get to the other side! It’s a chicken thing.”

They try a couple of ideas out that are clearly doomed to fail, but Super Grover does not let the chicken fall into despair. He is sure that if they keep trying, they will find a solution. Finally the chicken takes the pole with which Super Grover has been ineffectually trying to poke a hole through the wall and uses it as a lever, successfully propelling herself over the wall.

In another sketch, a cactus has a prickly problem—he desperately wants to play with a ball, only his spines keep deflating the ball as soon as he picks it up. He calls out, “Help, help!” Super Grover crash lands, and the cactus cries, “Super Grover 2.0, you showed up!” To which Super Grover replies, “It is what I do!” Super Grover then suggests a series of alternative balls for the cactus to play with, such as a bowling ball (too heavy) and a snowball (too melty), before he decides to take a lunch break. He removes the foil that his sandwich is wrapped in, balls it up and tosses it aside. The cactus is overjoyed—this ball of foil is just the right kind of ball for a cactus to play with!

(Here is the video of that sketch, in case you want to watch.)

OK.  So maybe you are thinking right now, “Clearly this woman is sleep-deprived and her brain has been addled from watching too much children’s television. Where is she going with this?  Does she think she is making sense?”

Well, I will admit to being sleep deprived, but I maintain that this will all make sense. Because, dear reader, Super Grover 2.0 is, in fact, a wonderful model of pastoral care.

No, really.

Remember Super Grover’s voice-over intro?

He observes. He questions. He investigates.  Super Grover 2.0. He shows up.

As a doula and as a chaplain, I do all those things.

I observe—I listen carefully to what those whom I am serving are saying with both their bodies and their words.

I question—I ask really hard questions, ones that nobody else may be asking, like: how do you feel about that? and what is it that you really want?

I investigate—I ask (or even better, prompt my client to ask) questions of the nurse and the doctor to try to understand the situation, I ask the patient (or family member, whomever I am supporting in the moment) questions in an effort to get them to search deep within themselves for reserves of strength and hope that they didn’t know were there.

But most of all—by far the most important thing I do, beyond anything I say—I show up.

As a chaplain, I show up in the middle of the night, roused by the insistent beeping of the pager, throw on some clothes that I hope are within the realm of professional (I will admit to having shown up at the hospital with my shirt on inside out before), I make my way to the room where someone has just had a really intense experience, and I come alongside them in their pain and grief.

As a doula, I answer my cell phone at every hour of the day and night, no matter where I am or what I am doing, because my client has gone into labor, or thinks she may have, and anyway she needs to know that I am there for her and will be at her side as soon as I am able, and that I will not leave her until her baby is born, no matter how long that may take.

Just like Super Grover (but without the crash landing, hopefully) I show up. All it takes is for someone to call out in need. As a chaplain (and even sometimes as a doula when I am volunteering to support women giving birth alone), I often have never met this person before, nor will I ever see them again. But I show up, because, in that moment, they need somebody.

And, like Super Grover, I do my best to be helpful. I certainly hope that I don’t make such a muddle of it as he does, though there have been times when it seems that I say all the wrong things. But ultimately, just as in all the Super Grover sketches, the reality is that it is not anything I say or do that will solve this person’s problem. Really, it is my job to get out of the way and allow this person find their own way.

But showing up, that’s key. Sometimes all it takes for someone to believe they can move forward is for someone to show up and believe in them. There’s even a ten-dollar theological word for showing up: incarnation. Capital-I-Incarnation is how we describe God taking on flesh: what we see in the person of Jesus Christ. But there is also a lower case-i-incarnation: this term is used to describe a way of providing pastoral care for others: incarnational pastoral care is when God is embodied–-albeit in an imperfect way, as we are imperfect beings–-but God is embodied in our care for others. As a care provider listens and empathizes with one in need, God is present. In this relationship, God is incarnated (is borne in the flesh of) these two people in their interaction with one another. In that moment of truly showing up, the caregiver has made space for them both to experience the inbreaking of the reign of God.

And this incarnational ministry thing is not limited to chaplains, or pastors, or any sort of licensed or ordained minister. Certainly it is not limited to doulas. We can all relate to one another in a way that is incarnational. What it takes is a willingness to show up for someone, anyone, who calls out in need.

Jesus said (in Matthew 25) that those who reach out to others in need, are in fact reaching out to Christ himself. Christ is present, God is incarnate, when we welcome a stranger, when we visit the sick, when we feed the hungry, when we clothe the naked. That is not a message just for those in some kind of professional ministry. That is a message for us all.

And so we are all called to be like Super Grover. Christ commands us to hear the call of one in need, and to show up. And we can trust God to show up, as well, and to work through our efforts—even if sometimes they be bumbling, and include crash landings and totally unhelpful suggestions—yes, even then, God can work through each of us. We just have to be faithful and show up.

Remember what the cactus said, when Super Grover crashed into the desert beside him?

“Super Grover, you showed up!”

And Super Grover replied, “It is what I do!”

It is what I try to do, in my doula practice, in my chaplain ministry, in my everyday life.  By the grace of God, may we all be inspired to engage in this superheroic incarnational ministry, the ministry of showing up.

V is for Vagina

My 3 year old has begun doing representational art. I am so excited about this, as it means that she no longer simply fills a page with scribbles, but now her lines are drawn with more precision and are meant to represent something in particular. So far, her favorite things to draw are people. The other day V (the 3 year old) and her father (Thomas) and I were all sitting at the table while she was working, and she produced this:

And then she volunteered this description of her work:

• (indicating the two large circles at the top) “These are the eyes.”
• (pointing at the lines) “These are the arms and legs.”
• (finally, indicating the small circle at the bottom of the page) “This is the vagina.  That’s what it looks like.”

Somehow, Thomas and I didn’t laugh (credit our years and years of experience working in child development centers) and instead made some sort of appropriate response to her work. But inwardly we both were cheering!–not so much at her artistic ability, but at her nonchalant use of the correct anatomical term for female genitalia. This is what we have been working toward.

This might seem strange to some people, but Thomas and I are giving our all toward our goal of helping our V have the best body image possible. And we figure that starts with her not only knowing what she’s got, but also knowing proper anatomical names for it and knowing that not one bit of her body is dirty or shameful or embarrassing to talk about in front of her parents.

Thomas and I just this past Sunday finished up leading a sex ed course for middle schoolers and their parents at our church (the wonderful, inclusive, progressive United Christian Church), and one of the things the author of the curriculum did which I particularly appreciated was to address what she called “the issue of female pride.” She wants every girl to know that God made every bit of her, including her reproductive system, and that every bit is “fabulous”. It reminded me of a passage in Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth, in which Ina May Gaskin (author, midwife, and natural childbirth advocate) writes, “There is no other organ quite like the uterus. If men had such an organ, they would brag about it. So should we.” I am sure Ina May would agree that the same could be said for our vaginas.

But some women experience anxiety about whether their vaginas will ever return to normal after childbirth. Fear about this can be a real distraction from doing the work of labor and birth. My advice is this: give it time, do your kegels, and remember that your body was designed for this. Which reminds me of another classic quote from Ina May (also from Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth):

Remember this, for it is as true as true gets: Your body is not a lemon. You are not a machine. The Creator is not a careless mechanic. Human female bodies have the same potential to give birth as well as aardvarks, lions, rhinoceri, elephants, moose, and water buffalo. Even if it has not been your habit throughout your life so far, I recommend that you learn to think positively about your body.

Can I get an amen?