Talking to Pepita / Advent Day 14

Susan alerted Marin and me to this poem in Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac, which some of us receive in our in-boxes daily. At its best, Advent for Christians is a time of waiting for life, for new life, to emerge and touch our hearts, transform us. The classic narrative here is the mother pregnant with a special child.

Oops. For my part, I have to admit that I haven’t been paying the attention she/he merits to the little one Marin is carrying, whom she calls "Pepita," or little pumpkin seed. The little one is tipping the scales at 4 pounds and has turned him-/herself upside down in the past week, Marin thinks. Little Pepita kicks through the night, and I sometimes feel the kicks when I have my hand over Marin’s belly, or when she spoons with me.

Upon Seeing an Ultrasound Photo of an Unborn Child

Tadpole, it's not time yet to nag you
about college (though I have some thoughts
on that), baseball (ditto), or abstract
principles. Enjoy your delicious,
soupy womb-warmth, do some rolls and saults
(it'll be too crowded soon), delight in your early
dreams — which no one will attempt to analyze.
For now: may your toes blossom, your fingers
lengthen, your sexual organs grow (too soon
to tell which yet) sensitive, your teeth
form their buds in their forming jawbone, your already
booming heart expand (literally
now, metaphorically later); O your spine,
eyebrows, nape, knees, fibulae,
lungs, lips... But your soul,
dear child: I don't see it here, when
does that come in, whence? Perhaps God,
and your mother, and even I — we'll all contribute
and you'll learn yourself to coax it
from wherever: your soul, which holds your bones
together and lets you live
on earth. — Fingerling, sidecar, nubbin,
I'm waiting, it's me, Dad,
I'm out here. You already know
where Mom is. I'll see you more directly
upon arrival. You'll recognize
me — I'll be the tall-seeming, delighted
blond guy, and I'll have
your nose. by Thomas Lux, from The Drowned River

Isn’t it striking how readily we can come to attention when we are considering our flesh, our family, photos of us holding each other, issues of our own house, or automobile. But it’s a stretch to gin up the same yearning for other’s children, or lives. It’s as if there’s a limit to the amount of emotion we can secrete.

But we know that isn’t the case. Love begets love, hope begets hope, and so on. It helps when our heart breaks, seeing children who hunger, seeing tribes direct lethal attention on others, hearing our own people lash out at undocumented aliens and at Muslims. It helps when our heart breaks, because it enables more feeling.

Ten years ago, when I came to Alaska, I believed that a 21st century Jesus would feel the most sadness and would direct the most healing to the divide between people and the earth that sustains them. The "poorest of the poor" which the Catholic Worker sees as Christ’s main focus, would be the snakes, the ants, and the tigers whose tenuous grip on existence is loosening. Extinction is the modern holocaust. From the cross on which humanity would again crucify him, Jesus would look down and say, "Forgive them, for they know not what they do," and he’d be looking at us, us consumers, us car-whisperers, us elephant poachers, us gold-wedding-ring-wearers.

And that, my dear little Pepita, is the world we’re hoping to save for you, so you can do the same. Out of a deep, incomprehensible, and never-ending love for this brilliant earth, this sweet, rich life.