"I was there to hear your borning cry, I’ll be there when you are old. I rejoiced the day your were baptized, to see your life unfold."……John Ylvisaker
It seems Regions Hospital in St. Paul was a hopping place yesterday. Sixteen little ones made their way into the world in the course of seventeen hours. As I read this story in the morning paper, I tried to imagine the hallways, the waiting rooms and birthing rooms. I tried to imagine the nurses and doctors and other medical staff bustling about perhaps wondering what was going on. It wasn’t a full moon, it wasn’t a snowstorm, all good predictors for babies being born. It was just a regular summer July day….a little hot, a little humid, a little slow moving….except in the labor and delivery rooms at Regions. A whirlwind of birth was happening there!
I’ve had the blessing to be in the presence of several new babies recently. As I hold them and look into their uniquely beautiful faces, it is difficult not to think of the promise they bring to the world. Who knows but that the one with the funny little smirk on his face won’t be the one who brings laughter and compassion to a world that so desperately needs it? Who knows but that the one with piercing, inquisitive eyes won’t be the one who discovers cures for some of our most dreaded diseases? Who knows but that the one who gently sings under his sweet-smelling milky breath won’t be the one to create the next most longed-for symphony? Each little one….a bundle of promise, of hope, of possibility.
As were we all in the eyes of those who welcomed us to the world. It makes me wonder. What is there yet to be known through me, through you? How is the promise of each of our lives yet to unfold?
This lovely hymn of John Ylvisaker never ceases to make those who sing it well up with tears. As the lyrics continue on through all of life’s stages, it presumes that the Holy and those who welcomed us into the world continue to observe, nurture, affirm and support each of us. If only it were true for everyone who enters the world. If only each child was surrounded by the love the song describes. Of course, we know it is not so.
And yet today our prayer can be, at least for those sixteen who yesterday confounded and surprised the Regions’ medical staff, that they are held as gently by the loving human arms as we know they are by Holy Arms.
"When the evening gently closes in and you shut your weary eyes, I’ll be there as I have always been with just one more surprise."