Thursday, 24 December 2020

Pistis reclaims the miracle of the birth of a baby (weekending December 26th 2020)

 

istis reclaims the miracle of a baby (weekending December 26th 2020)

In this ‘Christmas week’: celebrated, cancelled, someone-else’s festival, meaningful, met with indifference, commercialised, believed, appropriated, TV-binge-ridden, alcohol-binge-ridden, domestic abuse-ridden, ignored, resented, rejoiced-in, delivered in a van, worked-through, argued-through, loved-through, slept through, wept-through… ‽istis reclaims and wonders at the birth of a baby:

not an apparent history-splicing, GM human/divine hybrid, specific-faith-venerated Christ-child - supposedly bringing ‘peace on earth’, ‘goodwill’, etc., etc.[i] whose birth was purportedly heralded by angels, witnessed by shepherds, and re-enacted by schoolchildren (if only online) in the guise of assorted third camels, second astronauts, Santas[ii], dinosaurs and the occasionally tea-towel be-clad etc., etc…

not just the birth of another very naughty boy (among the oh, so many naughty boys of ‘history’)

…but every single baby[iii].

Each one perhaps an utter, utter miracle of DNA; of planning or non-planning; of more or (sometimes very-much) less loving close encounters; of science and physician-assisted skill; of nature and nurture in glorious interaction…

Whose averagely adult blood vessels laid end to end would circle the Equator four times; whose average tummy button may hold 67 different types of bacteria (in symbiotic symbolism?); who averagely may lose 44kg of skin cells every year (in a seemingly endless physical transformation?); whose typical nerves carry information around at about 400kph; who may not shed an actual tear until perhaps a month after birth (but may shed many thereafter?); whose averagely life-spanned heart (chance and social circumstance permitting?) will quite possibly beat more than 3 billion times[iv] (and occasionally skip a beat in wonder and love and gratitude?), etc., etc…  

And, as perhaps for some, Christmas leads to Easter; so too ‽istis wonders and rejoices and sometimes despairs at what birth leads to…

But ‽istis wonders also: if we could possibly kneel in adoration, and reclaim and wonder a little more at the miracle of the birth of every single child, might we just imagine again how different the world could be?

© Pistis                                                                                                                       

NB: further reflections and comments linked to this week’s theme and past blog
entries to be found on Twitter: replies, retweets (which don’t necessarily indicate approval, sometimes the very opposite!) and ‘likes’:  
@Pistis_wonders 

 


[i] That went well…  discuss!

[ii] …because if we believe in Father Christmas and his physics-defying present-delivering ways, well we might just believe in any old (bah!) humbug…

[iv] All information from: https://www.natgeokids.com/uk/discover/science/general-science/15-facts-about-the-human-body/ (N.B: words in parenthesis, Pistis’ own for dramatic effect!) And, of course, as ever – you might like to add your own quite interesting ‘facts’…


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