Swaddled by the Spirit
March 15, 2011
Seventeen years ago in July of 1993, my daughter Arabella was born. Now that I am preparing to be a grandmother, I am looking back with excitement, the joy of having a baby in my life. I remember the first time she smiled, her holding my index finger while she was in her baby bathtub, and so many other happy times. Yet, I also remember the tough times too. She went through some difficult times as an infant. She would cry and scream and after checking to see if she needed a new diaper or was hungry, nothing seemed to calm her. My husband at that time and I were at wits end and became anxious, tense, and overwhelmed by her screams. How do we manage this little baby’s pain? What is making her so uncomfortable? What do we do? It seemed to us that we were in our “desert time” in our life as parents. We were thirsty for answers, hope and solutions. After trying many things, including bringing to her to the pediatrician, we came upon a solution. She seemed most happy when she was wrapped snuggly in her white satin edged blanket. Swaddling, as it is called, when you wrap an infant in a small blanket, was the key to her, (and our) peace of mind, body and spirit. The blanket became our symbol of a new season in our increasing parenting skills.
We are now in the season of Lent at St. Stephens Church in Catlett, VA and I am serving them as Sabbatical Supply Priest until their beloved rector, The Rev. Pati Mary Andrews returns in July. We are reminded in the Gospel lesson in Matthew that Jesus was driven by the Spirit to the desert. Of all places to be driven by the Spirit, why was he driven to the desert? The desert, with all of its barrenness, cracked places, dryness and lack of food and water, does not seem like a very nice place for the Spirit to be driving folks to.
In our world today, we constantly are surrounded by cracked barren places where people are in tremendous physical and emotional pain. The news of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan is devastating. Every news channel on the television and internet has stories of massive destruction, imminent danger from radioactivity and the deaths of thousands of people. If you add the communal grief and anxiety that the whole world is experiencing to the grief and anxiety we already have in our own lives, we can sometimes get overwhelmed by all of the sadness, pain and anxiety. When we are overwhelmed, we might believe that we are unable to cope or unable to help with the world’s pain and it causes us to shut down. This might not be a bad thing, time to turn off the television and focus a bit on our relationship with God so that we might be renewed or “swaddled by the Spirit” who comforts us in all of those cracked barren places.
I found this poem, Let Your God Love You by Edwina Gateley a few years ago that has helped me when I feel anxious and overwhelmed. I have prayed it while physically wrapping myself in a blanket, like Linus from the Peanuts gang, and my own daughter as an infant, and this time of prayer has been my oasis, a place to be refreshed and renewed by God in the midst of suffering.
Let Your God Love You
By Edwina Gateley
Be silent
Be still
Alone
Empty
Before your God
Say nothing
Ask nothing
Be silent
Be still
Let your God look upon you
That is all
God knows
God understands
With enormous love
And only wants you to look upon you
With that love.
Quiet,
Be still,
Be.
Let your God
Love you.
Perhaps letting ourselves be “swaddled by the Spirit,” will enable us to get to a place where we are served by Angels, when we are feeling shut down and overwhelmed. We can only actively help those who are hurting, not by attempting to fix everything, but by being open and present to God. God, who understands all of our losses, anxiety’s and burdens of our hearts. God desires to look upon us and fill us with tremendous love.
