Week 16: Room for One More
A couple years ago at the reception following my grandmother’s memorial service, I was standing with my cousin, a mother of three, who was cradling her new baby. A family friend started chatting with her, drawn in by the adorable, peaceful baby in her arms. Then the family friend said, with astonishment and deep judgment in her voice, something to the effect of: “why would you have a third baby when you already have two – a boy and a girl?!” If someone had asked this week’s author, Nancy Mairs, this question she would have said “there’s always room for one more in my home and in my heart!”
This week’s story is about family values – not the kind you hear about in the political arena, but about a family who values love beyond biological relatedness.
After you listen, some questions for reflection…
- Mairs writes: “It is not a wonder that I have taken God in, but a scandal that I have received God so infrequently and grumpily.” She confronts the idea that love is “an upwelling of delight.” Instead she wonders if love might be a kind of absorption or attention. Is your relationship with your child always filled with delight? How would you describe your feelings when you don’t experience delight? Would you define this as love?
- This essay is the last of the Struggles With Love section. By naming this section “Struggles With Love” the editors imply that struggling with love is part of the spiritual adventure of parenting. I wonder what you think about that. Is it? How so?
With you on the adventure,
Rev. Beth
