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Diary

by
02 November 2006

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Wonderfully made

IMOGEN Grace Grenfell came into this world at the beginning of February; or, in the words of the midwife, came “flying” in, in a great hurry, bright red in the face, and lungs fully operational. My husband James laid her on the bean-bag in front of me, and I took in her salty taste, her sticky skin, her puzzled expression, and marvelled that she was part of us.

“She’s enormous!” they said. And she was: nine pounds, nine ounces; an astonishingly robust and immediate physical presence. I have a photo of her having her first bath, face screwed up in disgust at the sensation of the water. When I look at it, I remember seeing in her face even then a full range of emotions that are now familiar to me, but that I know have been part of her character since before she was born.

All through my pregnancy, I listened to a CD of St Mary’s Cathedral Choir, Glasgow, singing Bernadette Farrell’s setting of Psalm 139. The last verse still swims round my head: “For you created me and shaped me, Gave me life within my mother’s womb. For the wonder of who I am I praise you: Safe in your hands all creation is made new.” When I look at Imogen, the words seem to belong to her.

Windows on God

I USED to think that my spirituality found its natural home in the lofty arches of an Oxford college chapel, singing great mass settings, or with me alone, contemplating the natural world. For a while, after having our first child, Samuel, I was frustrated that I couldn’t have any of those experiences so easily any more, as his busy little life impinged on my solitude.

I would think that I could sit down to pray, after I had done all the baby and house things that I needed to do, but it seemed that the cycle of feeding, nappies, washing, baths, and tidying up was endless, and I would be sad that I never got to the prayers. But, gradually, I’ve learned that the prayers have to fit around the daily challenges of finding Thomas the Tank Engine socks in my coat pocket when I’m looking for a handkerchief, and explaining (again!) that the monster in the Noddy video is really just a lamp-post.

So, in snatched moments of quiet when everyone else is asleep, I give thanks for Samuel’s mischievous presence, and pray that I will know what fears I should protect him from, and what I need to let him overcome himself.

With a new baby around, the prayers now also include thoughts for all those far-flung places whose disasters, natural and man-made, constitute the BBC’s World Service in the small hours. Adapting St Augustine, I keep watch with all those who wait and watch and weep — and feed babies — each night.

The recollected life

AS WELL AS finding my own appreciation of the sacrament of the present moment, I can see that Samuel, aged two, has a way of expressing the sounds and colours of his spiritual life by adding his sound effects to our bedtime settling routine. So, as I sit downstairs feeding Imogen, I can hear through the baby monitor the sounds of James beginning a toddler version of the Ignatian review of the day, and Samuel joining in.

“It’s been a busy day, Champ. We got up, and you had some Weetabix [“Yomp!”]. You went to nursery in the car [“Car!”], and you played on the slide [“Wheeeee!”]. There were some lovely sausages for lunch [“Hot, hot, hot!”], and, in the afternoon, Mummy and I took you to the shops to get some new shoes [“Yellow!” (they’re not, they’re blue)].” And so it continues.

His delight at God’s noisy, colourful world is reminding me how to relish life, and is making me wonder what sound effects I should offer with my own prayers.

Short-cut spirituality

WILFRED, our greedy, scruffy, indomitable cocker spaniel, has his spiritual life, too. Unfortunately, it seems to be a spirituality of short cuts. This is particularly obvious in the area of penitence. He wants to be forgiven, but not actually to repent, or mend his ways in any sense.

So, having been sent outside — after we had found him standing on top of the dining-room table, demolishing the remains of a loaf of bread — he slinks back, tail between his legs, eyes downcast, asking for a pat on the head and to be told it’s OK.

Yet, when left with a similar opportunity a couple of days later, he doesn’t amend his life. He just gives me a sideways look, and gobbles even faster the leftover sauce from its Chinese-takeaway carton. As I walk furiously across the room, he knows that his time is limited, and that he’ll soon be repenting at his leisure in the garden. Then we get the same hang-dog routine all over again: soulful eyes, head bowed penitentially, as he begs for absolution.

Keen to find a quick way into all the available sacraments, Wilfred has also eaten a whole packet of unconsecrated communion wafers — the priest’s wafer size: he left the people’s. He has drunk tea from the cups of a funeral family who had come to talk through the service. Once, he started on a box of incense, but obviously decided it wasn’t very pleasant; so he gave up.

We pray for his mortal soul, hope our children will turn out better, and have learned to put things away.

The Revd Dr Joanne Woolway Grenfell is part-time Priest-in-Charge in Manor Ecumenical Parish, Sheffield.

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