Eight Babies, Dripping Breasts, and Questions to Boot
While on vacation, I dreamed that I had given birth to eight babies. The dream began in medias res -- the actual birthing process was done and not particularly relevant. Instead the drama focused on the integration of caring for these new family members while finishing what I had started before they were born. I was mid-semester in classes, working fifteen hours a week for money, however small, that we could not afford to give up. I had already been off several days and needed to get back to it. I was wondering how I might quit the job and simply nestle in with these newborns, yet I wanted to finish classes. Double pull on my soul, triple when considering the financial questions within the context of the dream.
Meanwhile, my milk suddenly came in. With breasts bursting, I realized I did not have my breast pump, loaned out as it was, and I was stressed not knowing what to do -- stay or go? Meanwhile, I looked at these totally adorable, peacefully sleeping bundles in my husband's arms - did I mention there were eight? -- and suddenly realized I had not fed them at all since they had been born. New panic. Peaceful is now looking deathly.
That is when my very real child wakened me to tell me he was hungry and would I please get him breakfast. I kid you not. I cannot consciously make this stuff up, but boy, does my subconscious have fun terrorizing me with its comedies.
Now is the time to insert, perhaps, that I have been thinking a lot about the ongoing struggle that women have -- men too, but I am speaking here as a woman -- in trying to balance, juggle, or some other equally dissatisfying word, career and home. My internal struggles come and go, and the latest began (I confess) with an episode of Grey's Anatomy in which Meredith Grey is trying to meet all the needs of motherhood and career, and her career takes a hit. Her best friend tells her, "you made a different choice than me when you chose kids and family, and that's okay. Bailey had a kid but she never stopped pushing. You don't want to be that kind of mom. You got behind in your career and you can't pretend you didn't or that we are equal anymore because we aren't, and that was your choice, and that's okay." Clearly from the stunned look on Meredith's face, it is not okay. Then there was Parenthood in which the lawyer mom chooses to be there for some significant issues in the life of her family and loses her job. When she decides to stay home and take care of the kids for awhile, she begins to have a meltdown.
It is not that I feel like these are me -- I don't. But there are pieces here and there that nag and haunt a bit. I want to say that this discussion about women is a tired subject and that we are beyond it already. Someone, male, recently said this to me and I nodded, agreeing, because I desperately want it to be true. The truth is, however, that it is not true even though it may be broadening to include men's balancing act struggles which are occurring in their own uniquely gendered ways these days. (I won't be tackling that here, however.)
There is a reason that Jesus eats the fish fried seaside with his disciples at the end of the gospel of John. The writer makes the point that Jesus is there in the flesh post resurrection, not a mere spiritual presence. Ghosts can't eat.When God calls us out, God calls us as the fully embodied beings that we were created to be; nevertheless, there are not any stories of women with milk engorged breasts trying to discern God's calling in the sacred Christian scriptures.
All of this reflecting today, dream in the forefront, has led me stumbling into memories of Perpetua. Preserved ancient writings give us the true story of a twenty-two year old wife and mother who dies at the hands of a gladiator in early third century Carthage. Much within Perpetua's prison diary account leading up to her martyrdom is disturbing through my worldview lens. In a cursory modern reading, she rejects her father, abandons her baby son, and embraces the Greek ideal to "man up." All of this is in service of embodying the courage she needs to resist the renunciation of her faith and to face the subsequent death fated for her. In Perpetua's own telling, she sends for her baby boy whom she has nursed up to this point, but her father refuses to give her the baby in hopes of getting her to recant. In the midst of this push and pull, she is comforted both that her son no longer shows desire to nurse and that she bears no painful engorgement. Seriously. This is all in there. Later the editor, who frames her diary account with narration of her death, describes Perpetua's slave, Felicitas, as entering the arena "fresh from childbirth with the milk still dripping from her breasts." The crowd, numbed as they are to the usual violence and bloodshed, are so horrified that Perpetua and Felicitas are taken back in, clothed in unbelted tunics (lest they show off any feminine curves), and cast out a second time to the wild animals.
My 21st century pulls are far from the sort described in this life and death account of early Christendom. But I draw on it to ask my question nonetheless. How do we deal with breasts dripping with milk and vocations -- literally "callings" we are to give voice to -- that lead us either into the marketplace or back to the hearth? What of the pull on hearts, souls, and bodies? What do we sacrifice when we cannot have it all...and we can't.
I don't know what to make of eight babies -- what it is I have given birth to that needs nurturing as I stand in the midst of compelling and seemingly competing desires. I am actually quite content in my life these days as part-time chaplain and full-time spouse and mom. I work two days a week and I spend five days with my family soaking up, alongside my spouse, the mysteries of life through the unfettered eyes of my children. I play and laugh and have more fun than I have ever had in my life. Is more expected? Is more desired? At this point, what are those babies that I am busting to feed? The debate in our society nor in our home is over.
Discerning calling never seems to end. It leads me back to the source of all life, Creator God who births us and nurses us and manages the great household of the universe all at once. In my prayers, I find myself sitting on my kitchen bar stool, imagining God stirring pots and chopping vegetables while I ply her with my questions. How are you speaking through my dreams, Giver of Life? What matters in the scheme of the greater story of my life? How does my story fit into your much bigger story? I try to be still and listen in on a conversation I didn't expect to be having right now in my quite content state.
Thoughts from your own journeys of calling and embodiment of such callings? I would love to hear them.
Meanwhile, my milk suddenly came in. With breasts bursting, I realized I did not have my breast pump, loaned out as it was, and I was stressed not knowing what to do -- stay or go? Meanwhile, I looked at these totally adorable, peacefully sleeping bundles in my husband's arms - did I mention there were eight? -- and suddenly realized I had not fed them at all since they had been born. New panic. Peaceful is now looking deathly.
That is when my very real child wakened me to tell me he was hungry and would I please get him breakfast. I kid you not. I cannot consciously make this stuff up, but boy, does my subconscious have fun terrorizing me with its comedies.
Now is the time to insert, perhaps, that I have been thinking a lot about the ongoing struggle that women have -- men too, but I am speaking here as a woman -- in trying to balance, juggle, or some other equally dissatisfying word, career and home. My internal struggles come and go, and the latest began (I confess) with an episode of Grey's Anatomy in which Meredith Grey is trying to meet all the needs of motherhood and career, and her career takes a hit. Her best friend tells her, "you made a different choice than me when you chose kids and family, and that's okay. Bailey had a kid but she never stopped pushing. You don't want to be that kind of mom. You got behind in your career and you can't pretend you didn't or that we are equal anymore because we aren't, and that was your choice, and that's okay." Clearly from the stunned look on Meredith's face, it is not okay. Then there was Parenthood in which the lawyer mom chooses to be there for some significant issues in the life of her family and loses her job. When she decides to stay home and take care of the kids for awhile, she begins to have a meltdown.
It is not that I feel like these are me -- I don't. But there are pieces here and there that nag and haunt a bit. I want to say that this discussion about women is a tired subject and that we are beyond it already. Someone, male, recently said this to me and I nodded, agreeing, because I desperately want it to be true. The truth is, however, that it is not true even though it may be broadening to include men's balancing act struggles which are occurring in their own uniquely gendered ways these days. (I won't be tackling that here, however.)
There is a reason that Jesus eats the fish fried seaside with his disciples at the end of the gospel of John. The writer makes the point that Jesus is there in the flesh post resurrection, not a mere spiritual presence. Ghosts can't eat.When God calls us out, God calls us as the fully embodied beings that we were created to be; nevertheless, there are not any stories of women with milk engorged breasts trying to discern God's calling in the sacred Christian scriptures.
All of this reflecting today, dream in the forefront, has led me stumbling into memories of Perpetua. Preserved ancient writings give us the true story of a twenty-two year old wife and mother who dies at the hands of a gladiator in early third century Carthage. Much within Perpetua's prison diary account leading up to her martyrdom is disturbing through my worldview lens. In a cursory modern reading, she rejects her father, abandons her baby son, and embraces the Greek ideal to "man up." All of this is in service of embodying the courage she needs to resist the renunciation of her faith and to face the subsequent death fated for her. In Perpetua's own telling, she sends for her baby boy whom she has nursed up to this point, but her father refuses to give her the baby in hopes of getting her to recant. In the midst of this push and pull, she is comforted both that her son no longer shows desire to nurse and that she bears no painful engorgement. Seriously. This is all in there. Later the editor, who frames her diary account with narration of her death, describes Perpetua's slave, Felicitas, as entering the arena "fresh from childbirth with the milk still dripping from her breasts." The crowd, numbed as they are to the usual violence and bloodshed, are so horrified that Perpetua and Felicitas are taken back in, clothed in unbelted tunics (lest they show off any feminine curves), and cast out a second time to the wild animals.
My 21st century pulls are far from the sort described in this life and death account of early Christendom. But I draw on it to ask my question nonetheless. How do we deal with breasts dripping with milk and vocations -- literally "callings" we are to give voice to -- that lead us either into the marketplace or back to the hearth? What of the pull on hearts, souls, and bodies? What do we sacrifice when we cannot have it all...and we can't.
I don't know what to make of eight babies -- what it is I have given birth to that needs nurturing as I stand in the midst of compelling and seemingly competing desires. I am actually quite content in my life these days as part-time chaplain and full-time spouse and mom. I work two days a week and I spend five days with my family soaking up, alongside my spouse, the mysteries of life through the unfettered eyes of my children. I play and laugh and have more fun than I have ever had in my life. Is more expected? Is more desired? At this point, what are those babies that I am busting to feed? The debate in our society nor in our home is over.
Discerning calling never seems to end. It leads me back to the source of all life, Creator God who births us and nurses us and manages the great household of the universe all at once. In my prayers, I find myself sitting on my kitchen bar stool, imagining God stirring pots and chopping vegetables while I ply her with my questions. How are you speaking through my dreams, Giver of Life? What matters in the scheme of the greater story of my life? How does my story fit into your much bigger story? I try to be still and listen in on a conversation I didn't expect to be having right now in my quite content state.
Thoughts from your own journeys of calling and embodiment of such callings? I would love to hear them.
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