The Putting On and the Taking Off

Tonight we had dinner with some friends. Their kids played with our kids. We laughed and reminisced, and eventually my life-long friend and I ended up at the computer looking at pictures of our children. I held her 10 month old, looking past his chubby fingers as he grabbed my nose and poked my cheeks. We struggled to identify which newborn baby was which in the photos - they were all so other world-ly, so present but so distant.

I remember when my babies were first born. They were so vigorous and alive - constantly moving, as if to explore and prove their vitality, though perhaps only to themselves. Each movement was practiced over and over again. Each limb and digit exercised carefully. They were trying on their bodies, testing out the parameters of this new dimension. It was clear enough that the physical part was new, but they certainly were not.

I often thought of my children as old souls. I guess, really, all babies are. The inability to focus, the cries of frustration, the depth of slumber required to bring rest - they all spoke of the incredible amount of work that it was taking for their little spirits - their little selves - to remain present in this realm. To learn it. To experience it. To stick with it. Oh, how much easier must the world they came from only a short while before have been?

Tonight as I held my friend's ten month old son - who had learned to control his hands, to focus his eyes, to engage his spirit - I realized that he had adapted already to his body and this world. If I listened hard enough, I could still hear the hush of a newborn in his deliberate breathing, but it was clear that he was firmly and almost entirely settled in the here and now, even at only 10 months old.

Her two-year-old ran by, sturdy and sure on her little legs, and smiled in passing. She mumbled something about the mission she was on - probably to get more pizza or another dress up dress. Then my three-year-old hollered from the other room, asking for water. So it continued throughout the evening with our respective four, five, and nine-year-old children. Each of them so much more capable than the last. So much more comfortable and in control in their bodies and minds. So much farther from the squinty-eyed, heaven-drenched newborns they had been.

It takes us years to fully adapt to this realm, this reality, this space and time and place that we live in. Our spirits, so present and developed already at birth, stretching out to learn our bodies, and fill each niche. Eventually, we come to be adults - sure and seamless. We (that is, our spirits, which have been here since the beginning) become empowered by the very bodies that took us so long to learn and control. Our arms and legs, hands and feet, fingers and toes - they no longer hold us back by their stubborn rebellion. But, having filled and fully integrated with them, they now free us to express our true selves.

I marveled at that this evening. Rejoiced at it. Let the miracle of that reality settle in. But, as the photos passed by on the screen I began to look beyond the babies - to the hands and faces of the ones holding those infants. The mothers. The fathers. The grandparents. It was then that I started to think about not only the coupling of our bodies with our spirits, but the uncoupling that comes eventually - the process of taking off and laying aside.

Near the end, the fingers numb and become clumsy. Movements slow. The shuffling gait belies not just an aging of the body, but a yearning of the spirit to move freely, once again. Where we find ourselves forgetting is not so much an inability to recall, but perhaps a disentangling of our forever selves from our temporary selves. As hard as it is to fill the body, how much more so to empty it.

I am in the middle - eyes newly opened to the miracle process that unites body and spirit at birth and babyhood, and just beginning to watch those I've loved for so long start their own process of release, of letting go. I find myself wishing that I could encompass all of those around me - lasso them, embrace them - pulling them also to the middle. That through willing it to be so, the babies might hurry to gain their voices, and those slipping from me might turn back from the journey they are on.

But, it is not meant to be. I would not, really, wish to hasten any child from the freshness of God's presence, though I linger near to catch a glimpse of His light, a breath of His presence when I am with them, and count those moments as a privileged worship before the Lord.

And, as much as I would like to hold on forever to my loved ones, I would not presume that my best forever could rival even the first moment of their joyful freedom on the other side of this realm. So, I will linger near to them as well, and surely also catch a glimpse of His light and a breath of His presence, even as the light and breath of those dear ones fade. And when that final moment comes that they have fully stepped out of their robes of flesh -  that moment, too, I will count as a privileged worship before the Lord, who gives order to all things.