“THE WONDERFUL GIFT”
February 2, 2019
Dear Friends and Colleagues:
Writing the message that I sent yesterday regarding a terrible new proposal that could become law also reminded me of one I wrote several years ago after experiencing a personal epiphany on Assumption Day (August 14) after having watched the Orthodox Church service on television in Athens, Greece. I understood enough Formal Greek that the liturgy brought me to tears in the late-date realization (I was in my 70s then) of the wonderful gift that only women have. By God’s grace they are the vine through which the fruit of humanity is continued. Men may strut and pose and pretend, but only women are blessed with the amazing grace of motherhood.
I didn’t know why I had not felt this strong emotion before, since the proof was always there had I looked for it. But the beautiful ceremony, the liturgy, the chants, and the blazing candles, icons and colors brought me to a new place. I was almost ashamed that I had not realized that before, even when my own dear son was born and I was there at my wife’s side. But I guess one sometimes sees things better when he steps back a bit.
What so troubles me is that many women strongly hold to the idea that they, not God, should determine whether they are the chosen vessel to continue life – the vine of humankind. To hold an infant in one’s arms and to feel that tiny one respond with its own arm around one’s neck is to melt your heart and make you forever that infant’s captive. As a man I can only imagine what a mother must feel when her own little one suckles her breast.
With such glory possible, then how can humankind not feel revulsion that a new mother might even consider authorizing the death of her child immediately after birth?
Old Frank