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“Push! Push!” the new mom’s face is flushed from hours of exhaustion. She cannot possibly make her body push a single time more. She is too tired to go on but she continues to hear from all angles in the delivery room the desperate cry from others to continue pushing. The color of the new father’s face has been drained for hours. He knew this was going to be intense but he really had no idea what he was getting into when he decided to stay in the room. “Isn’t there a less overwhelming way that we can do this?” he thinks. “One that is more palatable for everyone? One that does not turn my stomach into snake-like knots or one that does not continually remind me that I could lose them both in the deep cut of a single horrific moment?” Dad has had to be picked up off the floor a few times and was finally sat into a chair next to mom. “Keep on pushing!” a scream from mom and then from the machines that line and are jostled about the room. The mother-in-law is pacing in the hallway, a cellphone in each hand. She is keeping the aunties and uncles, the friends from church, co-workers and generally everyone on that same hospital floor updated with the latest news. “Something is happening!” she yells into one phone. “Oh, wait. No, not yet.” She says disappointed into the other phone. “Push!” The soon to be grandpa is keeping the coffee flowing in the lobby, someone must do it. He stares into his tenth paper cup of the dark brew that no one else will drink and through the wobbly surface tension he reminisces about a similar day decades ago. How scared he was for mom and baby. How afraid he was for their future. Would there be a future? Would it all work out well in the end? “Almost there! Keep pushing!” There is a moment of silence. Was it a real silence or a fevered quiet that was simply relenting to the tremendous moment before it? Looking up at mom, the robed professional calmly makes eye contact with her and in a deep steady voice says, “I need you to make one more big push for me.” Mom takes a deep breath, dad swallows the sickness in the back of his throat, grandma shoves both phones in her purse and grandpa drops his old stale cup of coffee. And in that moment is the finale, the cry of a new life! Their frustrations, sickness, anxieties, and sentimentalities all fall away and converge on a new sound that is full of new possibilities; nothing but fresh opportunities.
As we enter the Christmas season and celebrate the birth of Jesus, let us reflect a bit on the messy business of birthing something new. As Christians, we find ourselves in the painful process of bringing about something new. It feels to me like Christianity in the Americas is going through her birthing pains and, like any mother who is about to deliver, the church desperately needs a team of calm and collected professionals to continuously encourage her to keep on pushing! Is it scary? Yes. Keep on pushing! Is it a matter of life and death? Yes. Keep on pushing! Do we know where we are going? No. Keep on pushing! Are we doing new things to foster new life and growth? Yes. Keep on pushing! My clergy friends, my lay ministers, I see you. I see the hard work you are doing. I see the new pathways you are finding to connect to people. I see you following your Holy Orders to preach, teach, baptize, and share eucharist. I see you; keep on pushing! We are in the middle of a painful, confusing, and messy moment in our church history. But remember that birthing is a painful, confusing, and messy thing to do. So do not be surprised when your congregants feel like they cannot go any further. When change makes them nauseated. When they want everyone to drink their old stale coffee just like they always have forever. You and I must hold these opposites in tension and calmly remind them, “I need you to keep pushing.”
-Rev. Lorenzo
Published in Extraordinary
Catholics Magazine Nov/Dec 23