The Miracle and Gift of Birth

Kissing the Face of God,  Morgan Weistling

I am due to have a baby sometime this week and naturally have been thinking about pregnancy and this whole process of creating a new life. The more I think about it, the more unfathomable it is to me.

As far as I can tell, we human beings are unique on this earth in our ability to reason and create. Obviously animals can reason to a degree and can create some pretty spectacular things: spiderwebs, beaver dams, honey--I could go on forever. But animals seem limited to a degree in what they are able to create.

We, obviously, are limited too. I haven't seen a human being create a spider web the way a spider can (at least in a way that wasn't done digitally)--but the breadth and scope of what we are able to think and do seems to go beyond that of other animals. We paint, we sing, we write, we build, we find ways to recycle, we pull fuels out of the ground to power our world, we discover medicines to heal--we create. And all of this creation takes a lot of thinking, research, and lots of trial and error and lots of time and lots of work.

But nothing we have ever created so far has ever had the capacity to think and create (the way we can) on its own. As much as we like to be creeped out by movies that portray human inventions like computers and robots coming to life and taking on human-like capacities to reason and create (and as creepy as it is when Siri responds to you when you talk at your phone), it is something that is beyond our capacity. Except in our ability to reproduce.

And here is where it all goes beyond me. About 9 months ago, a life began to grow inside of me. At this very moment, I feel him moving around in me. In a few days, he will be outside of me, a living, breathing boy, who will be capable of thought, motion, reason and creation. How did it happen? It is the one creative process that I have been a part of that required almost no work or thought from me. Obviously, pregnant women experience nausea and sickness during their pregnancies. Some become very sick and are put on bed rest. So our bodies are working hard and their is certainly sacrifice involved (and you do have to push the baby out of you in the end--no denying that).

But their has been no mental exertion or creativity on my part in the building of this new life. I haven't had to spend hours or minutes of my day, willing my baby's hand to form, building my baby's heart and lungs and digestive system piece by piece. I haven't had to go through several rough drafts until I came to the right form or idea. It all just happens inside of me, with very little effort on my part. And the end result is something that will be able to think and create on its own.

In short, I am convinced that pregnancy and birth is divine. It is nothing short of miraculous. Nothing I have ever attempted to do on my own--with all the thought and work and time that I have put into things I have written, music I have performed, physical and mental exercises--has come close to creating what is created when a baby is born. It is a process that God allows us to be a part of. It is a gift He gives.

I am grateful today for the gift of my life. For the gift it is to be a part of creating life. And for the gift of the birth and life of God's son, Jesus Christ, who brings peace and joy to life.

-Elin
Who hopes to better understand that spiritual re-birth that the scriptures so often speak of: Eph. 4:24 , 1 Jn. 4:7,  Mosiah 27:25, Alma 5:7–14, 26–28, Mosiah 5:2, Jer. 24:7

We are His words. We are His Music.

A friend took me to see The Nutcracker last night and through the entire performance, I marveled at the skill and artistry of the dancers and musicians that brought Tchaikovsky's masterful music to life. He wrote the music over a century ago. But the notes on the page wouldn't be worth much to us if there weren't people who dedicated their time and focus to understanding the notes and striving to be able to play them perfectly. 

In case you haven't noticed, I read a lot. And in some of my reading, years ago, I came across this: “Behind the cotton wool is hidden a pattern; that we—I mean all human beings—are connected with this; that the whole world is a work of art; that we are parts of the work of art. Hamlet or a Beethoven quartet is the truth about this vast mass that we call the world. But there is no Shakespeare, there is no Beethoven; certainly and emphatically there is no God; we are the words; we are the music; we are the thing itself. (Virginia Woolf, Moments of being)

Reading that left me cold. I can see what she is saying to a degree--about this human connection--about how just life itself and shared experience and creation can kind of remove the "creator" or "author" or "composer" out of the picture. It is easy to take away the individual and merely become part of the whole. And maybe I'm not entirely understanding what she is saying. But having read Shakespeare and having seen and experienced his plays, having listened to Beethoven and Tchaikovsky and experienced and attempted to play their music, I simply cannot remove the creator out of the equation. They were the individuals who made a choice to live their lives and then pick up their pen or sit down at their piano and create. It is not that music and words just flowed out of them...they made a conscience choice and sat down or stood up and went to work. The results of their time and effort simply would not exist were it not for their individual life and exertion. And what they created is beautiful.

So, the way I would re-write her thought is like this: "The whole world is a work of art; we are works of art. Hamlet or a Beethoven quartet are part of the truth about this vast mass that we call the world. There is a Shakespeare, there is a Beethoven; certainly and emphatically there is a God; and we are His words. We are His music. "We are His work and His glory." (Moses 1:39)

I believe that wholeheartedly. Individuals matter. We matter. Our choices, our lives--they matter. And because we are the creations of a loving Heavenly Father, His words and His help matter to us. The way to achieve the greatest and lasting happiness is by returning to the One who knows and loves and understands us best. And He made this possible by sending Jesus Christ to the earth. In my darkest hours, I have wondered how any of this could really be true...I have doubted and complained and have wanted to no longer be responsible for my own choices. But in those darkest hours, I have felt and seen and experienced things that are not definable or even expressable--and defy human logic. God is real. Our choices do matter. We are His words and His music and He loves us. He loves you.

-Elin

Who wishes she could express herself better....Speaking and writing succinctly have never been a strength of mine...