Having a new baby around Christmas time can be a heady experience. The core of the nativity story, you know -- when you take out all the messiah stuff, is really a celebration of the miracle of birth. And I've noticed that when you constantly have a tiny baby in your arms during the holiday season everything is just a little bit more charged.
I remember a moment when Lowell was about a month old. It was late, I was listening to "Silent Night" and tears started to stream down my face. A song I had heard thousands of times suddenly sounded new and the enormity of the entire experience of creating a life revealed itself. (I may have also been seriously sleep-deprived, but that's all part of the mystery, right? It's no coincidence that the most reverent hymns are about the baby Jesus sleeping.) This year at Christmas, with another newborn, I have been having similar moments. Feeling joy in the extreme, but laced with the unique terror that comes with being trusted to care for a tiny, vulnerable thing that has a value beyond measure. Most of the time I don't think about it. Most of the time I am caught up in the minutia of the day or the week. I'm not thinking about the fact that Matthew and I just created a human being out of thin air. But when the nativity myth is everywhere it comes back to me. A miracle has happened here. A tiny, spit-up covered miracle that keeps me up at night, but a miracle nonetheless.
Merry Christmas to you who celebrate. And peace be with you all.
