Joseph
Luke 2: 1-7
“And while they were there, the time came for her to be delivered.”
Perhaps Mary’s labor has already started—we are just hours away now. And that means Joseph is worried. So much can go wrong.
In ancient cultures, nervous fathers-to-be had rituals to perform during pregnancy and labor. In one old Greek custom, the young man would lie down and imitate the crying and writhing of a woman giving birth. In Papua New Guinea, the father builds a hut on the edge of the village and mimics the pain of labor until the child is born. Mythologist and storyteller Michael Meade writes, “Women pray while breathing through labor. A father-to-be rhythmically wraps and unwraps a strip of cloth or string.” His unwinding is his prayer that nothing will be tangled up, the infant will not be bound up in the womb.
Even when they are present, men are bodily removed from labor. They need some way to participate. We can imagine Joseph tearing an old garment into ribbons for swaddling the newborn, then hearing Mary groan and winding and unwinding that strip around his palm, waiting between contractions, praying with his hands, which is often the only way men can pray. His life, Mary’s life have been twisted and tangled, and yet the One who promised a son had not finally abandoned them. Childbirth is always precarious, and precarious is an old word meaning “full of prayer.” So Joseph wraps and unwraps, paces and prays.
May our Advent be precarious, a plea now for a Second Birth, for us.
Prayer: In the spirit of Joseph, Lord, let the Spirit pray within us, unbinding the knots we have twisted ourselves into, freeing us for new birth. Amen.
David I’ve so enjoyed starting the day with these meditations, and you’re always teaching me something new! 2 out of our 3 girls had precarious births and not your traditional entry in to the world…I still vividly remember your visit to me in the hospital when Margaret showed up 8 weeks early. I’m so glad to have a new way of looking at that wonderful word – precarious – full of prayer indeed.
Yes, you would know about precarious births, Lida. And yet each of those girls is an amazing gift.
My firstborn son Hayden had the cord wrapped around his neck twice during delivery and the nurses kept yelling “Decel Decel” when his heart rate plummeted. I was white as a ghost while my (ex) wife Kristin just breathed and turned as they instructed, seemingly as cool as a cucumber. Women are amazing man.
I am so moved by the birth stories that people have shared—-your experience of Hayden’s birth gives you a deep appreciation for the kinds of prayers fathers make in extremis.
When I look back on this past year I realize that I have been going through a rebirthing process in many ways: I have renewed my artistic activities, my friendships have deepened, I am practicing ahimsa (non-injury) with myself and others, I am more planted in my community, my health has improved through better eating, and I have realized that I am a fine human being. I am feeling more joy and alignment with the cosmos. I sometimes have a tragic fear, though, that this rebirthing will bring me closer to my death, eg “…just as Anne was finally getting it together…” BOOM! something bad happens. Does this make sense? Could it be survivor guilt?
That’s so common, really—at least it is for me—-that I can feel like things are going so beautifully…and then it seems too good—and I begin to imagine the end. I thought that was because I was Scandinavian!
Here’s where we lean on our 12 Step friends, who had to learn to take life one day at a time.