Reflections of a Midwife

Bringing the insights of four women to the season of birth and renewed hope

The Midwife's Story by Nancy Reeves

Woodcuts by Margaret Kyle

Later,
when the tale was told by others,
I was not mentioned –
like many women and men in essential jobs,
taken for granted.
But the Eternal One knows.
For our God gave me a gift to ease birth.

He was like so many others;
you could tell it was his first.
Anxious to get back to her.
Love shining in his eyes.
That wasn’t the only thing shining that night.
You didn’t need a light;
the whole sky was aglow with one star.

I knew they were packing them in.
But to make a woman, ripe to bursting,
sleep in a stable!
Oh, well.
At least no one would grumble at
the noise and the smell.
Birth so resembles death sometimes.

It was obvious she’d been prepared well –
far from mother, grandmother, cousin,
yet taught by them and remembering the teaching.
She knew that pain is part of every birth,
living with the hope and the joy.
He was a help too,
the strength and gentleness in his touch and look.
The love between them rivalled that star.

Then, the sweating and the pushing.
Hard work, harvesting the seed
planted months before and nurtured in darkness.
It’s a willing sacrifice we make,
offering our bodies to be broken open
– water bursting forth, sweat and pain –
to birth a miracle.

They knew he was a boy child before I told them.
The final push was easy.
Sliding out of his warm nest,
he came
to be with us.
Little lambkin,
blood on his head.
Large eyes drinking in the world.
A person could fall into those eyes.

I held glory for a second,
then gave him to her – to them.
I was forgotten for a time, as is right.
Their baby-filled eyes
had no room for anything else.
They had a few minutes, the three
united in communion,
before the magnetism of birth drew the others.
This time, men as well as women.

I’m not good with crowds and I felt full, satisfied –
my gift always ready,
prepared to make the way smoother.
I know I was inspired that night.
I left them to others and went home.
Grateful for my part
in bringing God to birth.

Nancy Reeves, Ph.D., is a registered clinical psychologist, spiritual director, and author who has specialized in the area of trauma, grief, and loss with adults and children since 1978. She also conducts workshops and retreats in the area of spirituality. She is internationally respected as a workshop facilitator, psychotherapist, author, and poet.

Reading Nancy’s imaginative account left me wondering what it’s like to be a midwife today. When my daughter, Tiffanee, had her first child, Emmett, she was accompanied during the time leading up to his birth by a woman who was known as a doula. Her name was Patti Jo and she was a remarkable companion for Tiffanee during her pregnancy, at the birth of Emmett, and in the months after.

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Gospel Spin-Doctors

Audience persuasion in the nativity stories of Matthew and Luke —

In conversation with Richard L. Rohrbaugh

As we negotiated the treacherous roads of the West Bank, hearing Wisam, our Palestinian tour guide, tell the story of the birth of Jesus from a Palestinian perspective just served to deepen my curiosity about the experience of the people of earlier times, who wove into their story-making and parchment-writing their own life experiences, attitudes, and beliefs.

For years, whenever I’ve wanted to know something about the influences that went into the writing of the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, I’ve turned first to a book by Bruce Malina and Richard Rohrbaugh called Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels. This book opened a huge cultural and historical window into the realities of life in the time of those gospel writers. I was very interested, then, when friends who had attended Epiphany Explorations in Victoria, British Columbia, last January, said that a teacher and author by the name of Richard Rohrbaugh had been the unexpected hit of the event.

That kind of affirmation couldn’t be disregarded, so I contacted Richard in late October to see if I could learn more about why Luke and Matthew wrote the birth stories as they did. Here’s what I learned from Richard.

CopperHouseCURRENT: As we approach the Christmas season, I want to be more alert this year to the things that influenced Matthew and Luke to tell the Jesus birth story the way they did, and why they spent time on the story of Jesus’ birth in the first place, when Mark did not.

ROHRBAUGH: In answering that question, the key is to know that the writers of these gospels set out to persuade their audience. Sometimes they wrote in order to elicit belief, at other times to confirm or solidify it, but in either case they sought to persuade. It is primarily their strategies for persuasion that differentiate how the birth stories of Matthew and Luke were recorded. Many of the strategies they used are unfamiliar to readers in modern, Western societies.

CopperHouseCURRENT: I’ve heard you speak on other occasions about something called “speech accommodation theory.” Am I right in thinking that it applies in this situation?

ROHRBAUGH: Yes, indeed. The basic idea is that speakers or writers tend to accommodate language to their audiences in order to gain a positive response. Of course, language that accommodates to and thus attracts or persuades one reader may simultaneously repel and dissuade another reader. Thus the Jesus story told the way Mark tells it probably attracted non-literate, rural peasants, while repelling members of the literate elite. By watching the way the gospel writers shaped the Jesus traditions in order to accommodate their respective audiences we can gain important clues to their persuasive power.

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The Advent Couple’s Journey

Deepening the couple relationship as an Advent spiritual practice

November 26 – December 25, 2006

Advent Calendar
26	11
27	12
28	13
29	14
30	15
1	16
2	17
3	18
4	19
5	20
6	21
7	22
8	23
9	24
10	25

No season of the Christian year carries a greater sense of journey than Advent as the midwife stories (above) illustrate so well. It’s also true for many people that no season of the year is more fraught with demands and distractions. Given that reality, I want to propose that those who live in a couple relationship consider entering into a spiritual practice together during Advent this year. This is almost like an Advent Calendar for Couples!

Advent, of course, is the four-week period of spiritual preparation leading up to the celebration of Jesus’ birth at Christmas. This year it begins on Sunday, November 26. Because Advent can be a very busy time for couples, this Advent Couple’s Journey may work best and be easiest to maintain if you set aside the same time each day for this simple process of reflection and conversation.

Each day, I present a key word followed by a brief reflection and then a suggestion for a conversation. If you are ready to begin, then on November 26 make time for “Beginning.”

If you'd like to continue the "Advent Couple's Journey" go to this link or click on the appropriate day in the above Advent calendar.

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Definitely not a Partridge in a Pear Tree

The twelve days of Christmas for the spiritually uncertain and the religiously bored

Guided by Donald Schmidt

If you choose to enter this spiritual practice for the twelve days of Christmas you might find it helpful to settle on one time of day to do this reflection.

Do you like to journal? Whether you are practiced at journaling or not, you might try writing your responses to the questions and wonderings at the end of each day’s guidelines.

Of course, there are other ways to process your thoughts and feelings. You can create art, write a poem or a song, make music, or engage in a focused conversation with a trusted friend.

If you'd like to continue the "12 Days of Christmas Reflection" go to this link or click on the appropriate day in the Christmas calendar above.

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Reel Spirituality

Taking time for film, faith, and spirituality: Joyeux Noel

Over the years, I’ve been fascinated by the stories that emerged from the trenches of the First World War about Christmas in 1914, when soldiers from both sides in the war left the trenches and joined one another for a celebration of Christmas. As I’ve caught glimpses of that moment from anecdotes, I’ve been left with all kinds of wonderings about what that would have been like. How did it start? How could they have trusted that it wasn’t a trap set by the other side? What was it like, during the days that followed, to go back to killing those they had just celebrated Christmas with? What did the kings and generals, who were manipulating this conflict from a safe distance, make of such a violation of the prescribed violence? These are haunting questions that inevitably lead one to the most profound ironies of our human condition.

Imagine my pleasure, then, when I discovered recently that a film about this very incident received great acclaim at Cannes in 2005. No, I haven’t seen it, but part of my Advent observance this year will be to find it, rent it, and watch it with a group of friends and family. Want to know more? Check out what my favourite movie review site, www.rottentomatoes.com, has to say about it.

Stay CURRENT, Stay Connected

In the next edition of the CopperHouseCURRENT, I will respond to readers who have been writing in. If you’re excited by what’s “emerging” in your life and context, why not share it with others by writing to me. Was there anything in this edition that touched a chord in you? What stories of midwives, pilgrimages, labyrinths, and celebrations have shaped you? Let me know if you are walking the Advent Couple’s Journey and how that is going for you.

May the blessings of new life, new hope, new peace, and deep love be abundantly yours!

In the name of the promised child, the one they laid in a crude hay frame and named Jesus.

Tim Scorer, ed.

Contact Tim at copperhousecurrent@woodlakebooks.com

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