Michael Alexander!

Michael was born yesterday morning, January 12 at 7:35. He was 7 lb 3 oz and 19 inches long. By 6:30 on the evening of the 11th I was having fairly uncomfortable contractions about 20 minutes apart, and by 11:30pm contractions had been averaging 4-5 minutes apart for about an hour and we headed for the hospital. I was 5cm/90% effaced upon arrival around 12:30am(and thrilled to be that far along!). Things progressed smoothly (albeit uncomfortably) until 2:30am when I was 7cm and having what felt like a completely overwhelming desire to push - I stayed there for the next couple hours and those were by far the hardest hours of labor. Alex and I were both exhausted and with almost every contraction I was trying to keep my body from pushing - but Alex was amazing and kept me calm and focused :)

My water broke when I was 9cm dilated (hurray protein) and by about 6:30 we were finally at 10cm. Our nurse (who was incredible!) helped maneuver Michael past the lip of my cervix which hadn't quite gone away yet and we were pushing. I pushed for an hour and Michael was born at 7:35!

We did end up with an internal fetal monitor for the last 45 minutes or so because they were concerned about his heart rate as we were pushing and the external monitor would not keep a continuous track on him. They also gave me oxygen for most of pushing to help his heart rate. Turns out the cord was wrapped around his neck twice, but it was a long cord and didn't cause any problems.

The ob and nurse had me pushing hard and fast for the whole hour because of the concerns over his heart rate - and I was in no mood to argue because they had made it clear that he needed to get out quickly or else they would help. I started to tear and they suggested a small episiotomy (to control it? I don't know) but I said no. I ended up with a 2nd degree laceration, but got him out without any further interventions, so we think it is well worth it! I was bleeding more than they wanted, so they did some aggressive fundal massage to get the placenta out immediately and then put me on pitocin to help my uterus contract and slow the bleeding. We weren't able to breastfeed immediately because he had already passed meconium in utero (not surprising, as we were at 41w 3d) so the NICU team was there to suppress his breathing immediately after delivery and do some deeper suctioning to prevent him from drawing it into his lungs. It was all in the same room so he didn't leave my site - one of my worst birth fears avoided! As a result his first Apgar was 4, but at 5 minutes it was 8. After they were done I finally got to hold him :)

Everyone who has visited us - nurses, family and friends - has commented on how incredibly alert Michael is and they are very impressed. We attribute this to an answer to our prayers for a strong, healthy baby and a result of being able to give him the gift of a natural birth.

What's in a name?

This post is about two years late, but I'm post-dating it because then everything is in order.  Yes, I alphabetize my CDs, DVDs, and books.  So? :)

We knew even before we got pregnant that our first son would be named Michael Alexander.  Arriving at this name was an incredibly easy joint effort; Alex suggested naming the baby after my dad, and I promptly agreed and added that our first-born son should also bear his own father's name.  Voila.

I obviously needed no persuading whatsoever to name our baby after my dad, and I was thrilled that it was Alex's idea.  It wasn't surprising--Alex has a great deal of respect and admiration for my dad.  Fittingly he also reminds me of Dad in many ways ("they" say that girls generally end up marrying someone like their fathers, and apparently "they" are right, whoever "they" are).  Little did we know that Michael would end up bearing a striking physical resemblance to his Grandpa.  We hope that this physical likeness is merely a foreshadowing of many deeper similarities--a deep love for God and family, a wonderful sense of humor, a sincere servant's heart, and an abundance of patience, to name only a few.  As well as being named for his Grandpa, Michael is also named for St. Michael the Archangel; the name Michael is Hebrew, meaning "Who is like God."

Alexander as a middle name was my idea, and Alex was gracious enough to let me name the baby after him. Even though I get no credit whatsoever for us having a boy, I was absolutely thrilled to be giving my amazing husband a son.  It just made sense to name him after Alex.  He is also named after Pope St. Alexander I, the fifth pope in succession from St. Peter and a martyr.  The name Alexander is Greek and means "protector of man"--a very fitting name for my husband, and a very fitting name to go with Michael.

WWDD - What would David do?

And the Lord struck the child that Uriah's wife bore to David, and it became sick. David therefore besought God for the child; and David fasted, and went in and lay all night upon the ground. And the elders of his house stood beside him, to raise him from the ground; but he would not, nor did he eat food with them. On the seventh day the child died. And the servants of David feared to tell him that the child was dead; for they said, "Behold, while the child was yet alive we spoke to him, and he did not listen to us; how then can we say to him the child is dead? He may do himself some harm." But when David saw that his servants were whispering together, David perceived that the child was dead; and David said to his servants, "Is the child dead?" They said, "He is dead." Then David arose from the earth and washed, and anointed himself, and changed his clothes; and he went into the house of the Lord, and worshiped... - 2 Samuel 12:15b-2oa

Many of us have undoubtedly been fasting and praying for weeks, perhaps months, for yesterday's election. We besought God to be gracious to us and have mercy on our country, to forgive our sin and save us from the destruction towards which we are rushing. And as an answer we get... Obama?

Could it be that "Yes we can" is louder than "Lord have mercy?" Is it possible that, as one friend told me only yesterday, "a vote and a veto go much farther than prayer in this world"? Well darlin', that's just ridiculous.

In 2 Samuel we read about David's response to the death of the child of his affair with Bathsheba. The child becomes ill, and David fasts and prays for a week - seemingly to no avail. The child dies. But rather than rant about the ineffectiveness of prayer, rather than blame God for the death of his child, rather than curse the heavens for this apparent lack of answer, what does David do? He gets up, washes and anoints himself, and goes into the house of the Lord to worship. David didn't seem to get what he wanted out of prayer, but he recognized the answer and accepted the sovereignty and mysterious goodness of that answer.

Hard as it may be, unreasonable as it may seem, can we not do the same? The election is over. God has answered our prayers regarding the election, albeit not in the way most of us had hoped. But it is an answer, and we will find infinitely more comfort in worshipping Him and trusting that He knows what He is doing than in moaning about the next four years.

This is not, however, to say that our fasting and praying is done. Now it has a new direction and it is not only our best choice but in fact our moral and patriotic duty to pray for president-elect Obama. It is also not to imply that because we prayed, and because Obama won, he must be God's favorite. I firmly believe that God has answered our prayers according to His divine will, but it is also clear that few, if any, of Obama's policies are in accord with that divine will. We have done all we could to affect who will be in the White House, now we must switch gears and do all we can to affect how he will govern.

For govern he will, and that brings us to another series of edifying episodes of David's life.

To set the stage, let us recall that in 1 Samuel 9 Saul is anointed king (actually the Hebrew word here is neged, prince - not melek, king, but that's a different discussion) over Israel. Over the course of the next several chapters he disobeys God in three major ways and as a result God rejects Saul from being king over Israel and gives the kingship to another (1 Samuel 15:26-28). That other is, of course, David. The kingdom will be taken from Saul's house and given to David; but Saul is allowed to finish his reign as king even after David is anointed.

David knows that he is God's chosen king; he knows that God has rejected Saul. And it is clear to David, as it is clear to the reader of 1 Samuel, that Saul is not being a good king. In fact the second half of 1 Samuel depicts Saul's steady descent into madness. But David refuses to go against the Lord's anointed. He does not return evil for evil, despite Saul's many attempts to kill him and his own many opportunities to easily do away with the mad king. He does not claim the throne during Saul's life. He continues to acknowledge and respect Saul as his king despite differences in policy, personality, etc. In no way does David condone the evil that Saul does, but he shows proper respect for the office of king. Which is only fitting, as he will soon hold that office.

Romans 13:1-2, 7 says:

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no
authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God
Therefore he who resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and
those who resist will incur judgment. ... Pay all of them their dues, taxes to
whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is
due, honor to whom honor is due.

Not what I want to hear today. At all. But as difficult as this may be for us today, imagine being a Christian in Rome nearly 2000 years ago and being told this. We may often read this passage in light of our modern democractic tradition, and it certainly applies to us today. But St. Paul was writing about obedience to an authority which was persecuting Christians. For over 300 years the Church lived under a government which was almost constantly persecuting it. And how did the early Church react? With protests and sit-ins? By staging a coup? Attempting to overthrow the evil dictators who were killing them? No! The heroes of the early Church were not political revolutionaries in the modern sense - they were martyrs. The Church cheerfully obeyed the Empire as long as obedience to the Empire did not conflict with obedience to God. She certainly spoke out against the evils of the Empire (including abortion) and this set Christians apart from pagans. But she was faithful to St. Paul's directive and gave due respect to authority.

Can we do the same? Giving due respect may be as simple as making a conscious effort to refer to "President Obama." It may mean being willing to see good that may come out of his presidency. It does not mean not criticizing those things worthy of criticism, but it does mean doing so without bashing (as satisfying as a good bashing is...).

As this ties in so closely with the virtue of justice it means giving due respect - not more. "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's" (Mark 12:17). It certainly does not mean placing our HOPE in any political entity. When we do that, we shall be rewarded exactly according to the measure of our hope - and that is not a happy thought. (We are looking more and more like Rome leading up to its fall - infanticide, emperor-worship, hedonism... but that is also another discussion).

"A nation that kills its children is a nation without hope." - Pope John Paul the Great

The Fall Revisited

Man, tempted by the devil, let his trust in his Creator die in his heart and, abusing his freedom, disobeyed God's command. This is what man's first sin consisted of. All subsequent sin would be disobedience toward God and lack of trust in his goodness. Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) 397

Let's start with the background. God has created the universe and everything in it ex nihilo (out of nothing), and has pronounced it good - including snakes (Genesis 1:1-25). As the crown of His creation He forms man - male and female - in His own image and likeness and breaths His very life into him (Gen. 1:26-27, 2:7). The man and the woman are given dominion over all creation and placed in the garden of Eden. God gives Adam a command to "till and keep" the garden (Gen. 2:15). This is not merely an instruction to be a good steward of the land - this is a priestly commission. The Hebrew words used here are 'abodah (till) and shamar (keep or, more literally, guard). The only other time these words are used together in the Pentateuch they refer to the priestly duties of the Levites in Israel.

So God has given Adam the task of tilling and guarding the garden. Tilling makes sense - a garden needs to be taken care of. But guarding? To be told to guard this place means that there is something from which it needs to be guarded - something which might try to get into the garden.

That "something" is called in Genesis 3 nahash, a Hebrew word which is translated here as serpent. We often have the image - in fact we are given the image in children's Bibles or storybooks - of a medium-sized snake wrapped around a tree talking to Eve. But nahash in Isaiah 27:1 refers to a dragon and in Job 26:13 a sea monster. So this word carries with it the connotation of something dreadful and deadly.

This deadly nahash gets into the garden. What happened to Adam's job to shamar the garden? The serpent was never supposed to be in the garden in the first place. But once there he confronts Eve:

"Did God say, 'You shall not eat of any tree of the garden'? And the woman said to the serpent, 'We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in th emidst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'' But the serpent said to the woman, 'You will not die.'" (Gen. 3:1).

And where is Adam? Right next to Eve. The serpent uses the second person plural while he is talking to Eve, which we lose in our English translation ("y'all" just doesn't look right in Genesis).

Satan refers to God as Elohim - Master. In the previous chapter as we read about God creating and blessing man He is called Yahweh Elohim - a personal, intimate God. To illustrate the difference in naming God another way it could be compared to the difference between Abba (Daddy) and Allah (Master). Both are true, but Master is a lesser title than Father. Satan is driving a wedge between God's love and His law.

Let's look at that law:

And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, "You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die." Gen. 2:16-17

At first glance this may seem somewhat arbitrary of God - give Adam everything except this one tree over here and kill him if he eats of it? Why have the deadly tree at all? Is God just testing Adam to see if he will behave?

Yes and no.

God is good. He does not make laws arbitrarily or whimsically, He makes them for our good and ultimately our happiness (think user's manual rather than rulebook). We see from the creation narrative before and the gift of Eve after that God obviously has Adam's best interests at heart. He is a loving Father and we must look at His law in light of His nature. It wasn't so much a test as an opportunity.

Adam and Eve (and each one of us) were created in the "image, after [the] likeness" of God (Gen. 1:26). In this verse God uses the first person plural: "Let us create man in our image..." This language implies the Trinity, meaning we are created in the image not of some vague idea of God, and not only in the sense that we can know and love, but in the very image of the Trinity. God is love, and the Trinity is that mysterious (beyond the power of our reason, not against reason) inner life of God, the Father giving Himself eternally in love to the Son, the Son giving Himself eternally back to the Father, and the Spirit that living bond of love between Father and Son. We are created for exactly this kind of love - an ultimate gift of self. As finite humans this love manifests in our lives as sacrifice. Adam is created to offer himself in sacrifice, and this is his opportunity. With no law, there can be no obedience (C.S. Lewis explores this beautifully - if verbosely - in Perelandra). God gave a law, asking Adam to give up one good for the sake of a greater good, thereby fully becoming who he was created to be. Without sacrifical love man cannot fully enter into the relationship with God - that inner life of the Trinity - for which he was created. By denying that opportunity, breaking that law, Adam and Eve do indeed die.

The Hebrew language doesn't have superlatives - it uses repetition to denote comparison (i.e. tall tall for taller, holy holy holy for holiest). The Hebrew phrase at the end of Gen. 2:17 might be literally translated "you shall die die." How can there be a death beyond death? The ancient rabbis took this to mean a death of the soul, something worse than physical death. So in a way, the serpent got it right - Adam and Eve ate the fruit, and they didn't die an immediate, physical death (which one might assume the deadly nahash was implying they would die, if they didn't cooperate). Instead they died a spiritual death, being separated from God by their rejection of Him and His law.

So Adam and Eve messed up. Got it. But what's with original sin - why do I get punished for their mistake? I didn't eat the forbidden fruit (by the way, nowhere in Genesis is it referred to as "an apple") - it wasn't my sin.

The Catholic Church teaches that "original sin" is called sin only as an analogy. It is not the guilt of a personal sin which we inherit, but the result of that sin. Before the Fall Adam and Eve enjoyed the gifts of original holiness and original justice. Original holiness refers to a share in God's life and original justice refers to three things: harmony with oneself (seeing the truth clearly, passions and emotions subject to the will subject to the intellect, etc.), harmony between man and woman, and harmony between man and all of creation. Before the fall, man was in right relationship with his Creator, himself, his neighbor, and all of creation. The Fall destroyed these relationships. As indicated by the very name we give this event, human nature had fallen. Adam and Eve as parents were only able to pass on what they had, therefore their children (we) inherited a fallen nature. Original sin refers to this inheritance deprived of original holiness and justice.

So original sin is not all of humankind being punished for the sin of Adam. It is a deprivation of gifts which he was unable to pass on because he lost them.

That was a whole lot longer than I meant it to be... and there is still so much more that I could be said that didn't seem to fit in :) Much inspiration and insight from Dr. Scott Hahn's First Comes Love.

My heart overflows with a goodly theme; I address my verses to the king; my tongue is like the pen of a ready scribe. Psalm 45:1

in Christ,
~ash

Let's start at the very beginning...

Did you know that all three Persons of the Blessed Trinity are mentioned within the first three verses of the Bible?

Genesis 1:1 "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth."
Genesis 1:2 "...and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters."
Genesis 1:3 "And God said" (spoke His Word, logos, the Son, cf John 1:1)