Friday, August 03, 2007

God and Babies

Here I am at a shoot listening to an “expert” discuss how to calm a fussy baby. Of course, having had a couple of babies, its hard to hear someone suggest that there is only one way to and it has to be done just right. My babies ranged from supper easy to supper fussy, and I am very aware of what it takes to calm a baby, most of the time. It is just so hard to hear all these first time moms and a couple dads, giving out their advice. Its funny, I know I was there at one time too, but first time parents really have no idea what they are doing or saying.

Putting it all in perspective, I am doing this on a Friday, but just four days before, I was at my nieces funeral. Kimberly Grace, was born at 5:21 PM on July 19th at 22 weeks gestation. She didn’t survive her surgery to remove a growth that had developed in her lungs and chest. Although terribly hydropic, the baby had appeared to recover from surgery and was showing improvement, but did not survive the first 48 hours.

My brother and his wife are devastated, and I am of little comfort since I can only remind him of why he is so angry. They are currently surviving day by day and are at least enjoying the comforts of their home. It is bad enough to endure what can possibly be described as the most horrible day in any couple’s life, but to do so thousands of miles from home without the support of the people you love and trust, I am sure makes it even more difficult.

We were fortunate enough to dine with my brothers family the other night, and he brought with him, the pictures he took of he, his wife, and Kimberly as they held their daughter and had a chance to say goodbye. It struck me clearly as I looked at the pictures, how simply tragic the whole summer has been for them. I don’t pretend to empathize, since I can scarcely imagine the tortured existence they have lived through, but seeing the looks on their faces and the devastation in their eyes, brings home how tragic the whole thing was.

At the funeral, the priest never tried to explain why God had seen fit to begin a life, only to recall it so quickly. People who don’t believe are quick to point out that as animals, there will always be genetic and developmental problems and that the conception of life is a mere mechanical process. Fertility doctors are no better, suggesting that they can scientifically create and control the entire process. It makes you wonder, if Kimberly had such severe problems detectable from the beginning would those same doctors have suggested using drugs to force her body to maintain the pregnancy even if it was hopeless? They did not use any such measures and were very lucky to have gotten pregnant so easily this time. But, this week I would say that although lucky, it was not good luck.

My brother is a good father, his wife a good mother. They have a warm and inviting home. On the same week that they lost their child, a local mother brought her new born baby to a local firestation and abandoned her. Again, how does the priest explain that it is Gods plan that my brother have such trouble creating a family why others are so quick to discard theirs?

I am not going to let this incident tear down my faith, since I can still see God in the intricate nuances of the universe. Being a scientist myself, I know that the equations and laws we use to describe nature are woefully insufficient that the elegance of it all is not simply happenstance. “God does not throw dice” as Einstein once mused; but a benevolent loving Lord who shepherds us day by day? My sister in law lost a baby on the day of her birth nearly 10 years ago and she denounced God for a long time. Even now, I believe she is still quite angry with His plan.

Watching my brother during the funeral, and listening to the calls of his 18 month old baby daughter as she happily contemplated the serenity of the ceremony; openly mocking the somber mood and tears, I saw how much the recent year of his life had aged him. Although younger, he has endured his adulthood with often more sadness than he should. But again, his daughter, simply smiled and called to those in attendance. She laughed, ate crackers, threw toys, begged to be put down to roam, and sang song. My own, two year old, well behaved as she was, stuffed herself with pretzels, yelled to here her own echo and played pattycake with herself as those around her cried and mourned her cousin whom she will never meet. There was the answer to the priest’s dilemma. There was the missing part of non believers; not the innocence of the babies in the church. That answer is too easy, too cheap. Its something more elusive that the toddlers can teach their parents. They have all encompassing needs wants and desires; most of which they are too immature to even begin to contemplate. They are thrust from place to place day to day yet, they stoically sing their songs, eat their snacks, play their games. They can find happiness in the most tragic of situations. They don’t understand the implications. Time is not linear, there is no future, past. Everything is the present. A baby's mere existence, however short, pained, or happy is punctuated with extremes all in search of intense times of happiness and solace.

God cannot be contemplated by adults without intense study, habitual reflection, and a mature sense of reasoning. But belief doesn’t require contemplation. Toddlers believe in the moment with unparalleled intensity. God requires belief and obediance not understanding. Just as I believe that the Earth will continue in its path around the sun by an intricate set of rules, I believe that those rules must happen this way and this way alone for the universe to continue its elaborate ballet. Belief doesn’t always require me to be happy, agree with events, or understand. God is not malicious, he created the rules and must therefore be bound by them. Imbuing me with free will, necessitates that people can be evil, but tragedies of nature are not the work of evil, they are simply the happenstance of nature.

God will understand if I am mad, will forgive my brother for being mad, will warmly accept the soul of Kimberly into his embrace knowing that even as he sent her to the Earth that she would be recalled under tragic circumstances. His knowledge doesn’t suggest he was a causal part of her death, but that he too is bound by nature. Cheating nature, as he has demonstrated in the past requires a great need on the part of his flock. I just wish that my brother’s need was great enough to warrant a miracle.

Good bye July.

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