Week 23: Birthing a New World
I’ve heard many say that having a child is like having your heart walking around outside your body. It is vulnerable, painful, but also wonderful to witness. Rosemary Bray McNatt’s essay is about how having children “broke her heart open” and gave her a “palpable desire to make the world brand new for their sake.”
After you listen, some questions for reflection…
- Has being a parent given you the desire to improve the world for your children and grandchildren? If so, how has this felt and how have you acted on it?
- She writes about the wondrous love she receives from her children. “Love I had not counted on, love I could not have anticipated, love I had not earned, love I could not prove but knew was real.” Do your children love you in this wondrous way? How do you know? How does their love help you see yourself differently?
Rosemary Bray McNatt, a Unitarian Universalist minister, is a prolific writer and has contributed many wonderful articles over the years to the UU World. Check out “Letter from a hoped-for future,” published in 2015. It is a letter to her imagined future granddaughter about what Unitarian Universalism looks like 20 years in the future, and why.
With you on the adventure,
Rev. Beth
