This place has been a ghost town for over a month. I apologize...sort of. It's been a ghost town because for one, I've been feeling ill almost all the time for the past two months and for two (which is intimately related to one), every post I sit down to write has touched on something we've been keeping secret...until today!
Today we shared some news we're really excited about with the world. News about a baby. We're having one (provided all goes well over the next 5.5 months - we hope and pray and we'll have to wade our way through if it does not) in late February. Baby Sumner is expected on February 28th. Luke hopes the kiddo will come on leap year (cool birthday!). I do not (rare birthday - also who wants to be pregnant for even one day over 9 months!?). But the heart of the matter is that we are overjoyed to share with the world that there is a little person inhabiting my body, growing, stretching, and (again, hopefully) on her or his way to a life lived toward and in God's Commonwealth of Love and Justice!
And as our little Arrested Development themed announcement hit facebook, there were also other announcements regarding babies. Syrian babies. Babies who survived the improbable 9 month journey toward, and difficult entry into, life. Babies who did not survive the journey and entry into Europe when their home became even more dangerous than the sea that claimed their holy little lives.
I feel stuck today. I feel stuck in that I want to spend all day mourning the life of that child who almost looked to be peacefully sleeping on the beach. Stuck in that I've spent the last 2+ months worried sick about losing our little one who I have yet to meet - and here are parents who have lost the child they've held and fed. Sensory memories of a beloved life you never should have seen the end of - met with achingly empty arms. Stuck in an overwhelming feeling that it is just wrong to put good news about a new baby out into the world while Syrian children are still in peril.
And I feel stuck that this little one growing inside me - making me crazy ill, taking all my nutrients, and making my life so much more than it ever was before - is precious. Tear invokingly precious. And this new soul also deserves to be celebrated, expected, wondered about, rejoiced in!
How do we hold glory and despair in the same day? In the same breath? How - without overlooking or diminishing one for the other? How do we mourn with those who mourn while inviting others to rejoice with us as we rejoice?
Those of us who identify with the Jesus story believe that - in some way - sin and death were defeated nearly 2000 years ago. And yet we believe their defeat is still incomplete. There is deep injustice and the death of innocents along side playful celebration of new life. There is mourning intertwined with laughter. There is a facebook feed filled with global devastation and with little glimmers of God's image and God's justice slowly treading its way across this messy place we all inhabit together.
And it's ugly and beautiful all at once.
So, we share our good news today even as we share in the suffering of our brothers and sisters.
We are so excited about our baby that we can barely breathe! And we are so heartbroken for the loss of other families' babies that we can barely breathe! And in that breathlessness is today's mystery of what it means to live in the gloriously-already-here and devastatingly-not-yet-fully-here Kingdom of God.
And as our little Arrested Development themed announcement hit facebook, there were also other announcements regarding babies. Syrian babies. Babies who survived the improbable 9 month journey toward, and difficult entry into, life. Babies who did not survive the journey and entry into Europe when their home became even more dangerous than the sea that claimed their holy little lives.
I feel stuck today. I feel stuck in that I want to spend all day mourning the life of that child who almost looked to be peacefully sleeping on the beach. Stuck in that I've spent the last 2+ months worried sick about losing our little one who I have yet to meet - and here are parents who have lost the child they've held and fed. Sensory memories of a beloved life you never should have seen the end of - met with achingly empty arms. Stuck in an overwhelming feeling that it is just wrong to put good news about a new baby out into the world while Syrian children are still in peril.
And I feel stuck that this little one growing inside me - making me crazy ill, taking all my nutrients, and making my life so much more than it ever was before - is precious. Tear invokingly precious. And this new soul also deserves to be celebrated, expected, wondered about, rejoiced in!
How do we hold glory and despair in the same day? In the same breath? How - without overlooking or diminishing one for the other? How do we mourn with those who mourn while inviting others to rejoice with us as we rejoice?
Those of us who identify with the Jesus story believe that - in some way - sin and death were defeated nearly 2000 years ago. And yet we believe their defeat is still incomplete. There is deep injustice and the death of innocents along side playful celebration of new life. There is mourning intertwined with laughter. There is a facebook feed filled with global devastation and with little glimmers of God's image and God's justice slowly treading its way across this messy place we all inhabit together.
And it's ugly and beautiful all at once.
So, we share our good news today even as we share in the suffering of our brothers and sisters.
We are so excited about our baby that we can barely breathe! And we are so heartbroken for the loss of other families' babies that we can barely breathe! And in that breathlessness is today's mystery of what it means to live in the gloriously-already-here and devastatingly-not-yet-fully-here Kingdom of God.
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