CARRIERS OF THE GOSPEL
(an excerpt from Play with Me: Two Friends on a Spiritual Journey with Kids)

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Seeing my sister-in-love over Christmas, feeling her son's heel and bum and elbow through earth-round belly reminded me of Mary's first pregnancy, the pregnancies of some of my closest friends and of my own first pregnancy.

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The incarnation kicks with verve, unpredictability, and wildness when we consider God approaching us in something as sensory as pregnancy. Two thousand years ago God did, in fact, come to us through a pregnancy: Mary's. Today, he still touches us through pregnancies, babies, growing children. Christ with is - even in us - the hope of glory always comes in real, organic, sometimes nauseating, and definitely life-giving ways.

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My friend Cheri and I shared discussions, poems, prose, even recipes about this very idea in the second book we co-authored, Play with Me: Two Friends on a Spiritual Journey with Kids. Enjoy an excerpt and some poetry from that book:

CARRIERS OF THE GOSPEL

Pregnancy is mysterious. A baby moving within you can feel as monumental as an earthquake, as scary as an alien invasion. Cheri and I had the honor of going through our pregnancies (and even one of my labors) together. First, Cheri carried Jennifer. Then, came my Ben. Her Ryker and my Ayden overlapped for a few months. (I can still feel the way Cheri and I bounced off of each others’ hard, round bellies when we tried to hug a greeting or goodbye, baby Ryker and Ayden meeting through layers of uterus, placenta, flesh.) A few years later, came the joy of Sean. And, last but not least, Emily, who was added through the adoptive grace of a paper pregnancy.

After Cheri’s baby shower for Jen, I remember playing one of my favorite songs for her. Cheri said that Jen responded with vigorous movement. Was she dancing in response to my voice, to the melody, to the piano’s timbre? Could it have been a response to the lyrics which sang about the warmth of a summer afternoons, catchin’ fireflies, buildin’ castles, kissing Mama’s face, and holdin’ Daddy’s hand? Cheri’s body served as soundboard for the harmonies. Her soul, for the lyrical truths. I still wonder what exactly caused Jennifer’s leap from the secret place. I wonder if it was more connected to me, to Cheri, or to God – the Real Music.

All women who have carried a child experience pokes and somersaults in response to specific sounds or voices. I remember Ben responding strongly to my father-in-law’s resonant voice. I always thought it represented the ripe, older, someday-fullness of Bryan, my husband’s tenor, turned bass with age and experience. I knew intuitively that Ben could hear the connection.

Maybe the movement of babes prompts us to listen along with them. Maybe they have ears to hear the things we miss.

Another fascinating phenomena related to carrying babies is the way they all behave so differently inutero. Friend after friend has told me “he was moving like a gymnast inside of me, and hasn’t stopped since birth.” Or, “she was so quiet within me, and her docile personality at age sixteen matches her sleepiness as a baby.” Even John the Baptist was already declaring the Way of the Lord from his mother Elizabeth’s old, revived womb.

Picture it. An old woman tired from sun and sand, work and barrenness, full with child. Just finished with the evening meal, she stokes the fire under the stew one last time. She considers her husband, Zacharias’ note requesting honey cakes for dessert. Feeling the exhaustion of a long, pregnant day, she decides to sit down in the shade of a tree. Awkwardly Elizabeth squats, trying to get her old, full-with-child body onto the dusty ground. And, mid grunt, she catches a glimpse of her cousin, Mary, on the far side of the nearest hill.

The two pregnant women greet each other. Belly to belly, their sons meet in the hill country of Judah. When Elizabeth’s babe hears Mary’s voice, he kicks so hard, it bends her over in pain, laughter and joy. It was one of those kicks right in the ribs that reminded Elizabeth that she’d not be able to share her body with the large, growing baby boy much longer. The maker of the way and The Way touch ultrasonically. John announces the Good News of Jesus. The cousins hear. Elizabeth asks Mary to stay for stew. “Let’s make honey cakes,” she adds.

As they walk, hand in hand, into the home, they giggle and revel about the ways of God. Their lives have both been turned upside down by His mysterious ways, and they’re thrilled to share in the unpredictable journey of faith together. Jesus came to Mary. Then to Elizabeth, through Mary.

He comes to us in our babies, and the children of our friends and families. We feel them leaping in us, begging us to listen. We receive them in us, and they bring Jesus to us the same way Mary did to Elizabeth. Just as Mary carried the Gospel, so do we.

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GROWING DOWN

by Cheri Mueller

inspired by Mike Mason's The Mystery of Children

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My child and guide,

love Blaze the way . . .

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Teach me to be a holy hoodlum

love With innocent indignity you jig on the pew

love Giggling and guffawing in prayer

love Recklessly abandoned to a rib-tickling God.

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Topple my pride with your toddler tunes

love Chanting the Psalms like a Mother Goose chorus.

love You circle and prance till the verse begs you fall

love Mussing starched clothes in the mud and the merry.

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Whisper to me the secrets of faith

love You wiggle your way into space oh so scared

love Breathing the green in a musty closet of clothes

love Marveling at the magic in this forest-wild world

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Learn me the unknown language of tears

love All propriety ignored as you wail from you soul

love Weep for the untamed darkness, and pain of new birth

love Your crying is confidence in a Father who cares.