
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.