Our Earthly Incubator

This blog is dedicated to Eden and Zoe.

You may have heard of, or even know my friends Jen and Jason who recently gave birth to triplets at 24 weeks of gestation back in October. Two of the babies passed away due to complications, but the third baby, Juliana, is doing well. Jason and Jen have a blog they update daily, graciously sharing their struggles and triumphs.

After being in the incubator for 3 weeks Jen and Jason got to hold their daughter for the first time through a special technique called “kangaroo care.” This technique is especially important to premature babies that spend most of their time in an incubator. The key component of the “kangaroo” is skin to skin contact, but what this means for Juliana, who is still on a ventilator to help her breathe, is that they must be very still while they hold her. They cannot rock her or move at all because of the tube in her throat. In addition, her skin is very delicate and they’re not supposed to rub it. Instead they press their warm hands against the tube and gauze-free patches of her skin, passing their love from hand to tiny head.

Literally thousands of people are reading their blog praying for Juliana and her family, as they see the love this baby has to live for. Even I, just a friend and onlooker wish I could somehow tell her how loved she is or perhaps whisper in her ear “Do you know how much? Can you see how they love you?”

Inside the incubator, Juliana is made as comfortable as possible. Her bed is warm, soft, and safe from infection, but who could blame her for feeling alone in there. What she doesn’t know is everyday just a few feet away her parents sit watching over her. She can’t feel it, but they are there.

Even if they hooked up the incubator with a giant flat screen TV with a Sesame Street marathon playing 24/7, it could never replace her need to feel her father’s fuzzy chest pressed up against her tiny ear. At the end of the day, what Juliana needs most, is to feel her parents close.

I can’t help but think of God outside the incubator, who also longs for us to feel His love. Even when we think we’re all alone, even when our closeness to him seems out of reach, he is there, desperate for us to remember the times he held us close; but who can blame us for feeling alone? Alone in our heated homes, soft beds, and shelves full of books and DVD’s to entertain and distract; but eventually we all come to the place where we realize that these things are not enough. We need companionship. We need friends, we need family, and most of all we need a God to teach us how to love them.

In their blog Jason shares how the kangaroo care has a physically positive impact on Juliana as she snuggles down and relaxes in their arms. Juliana finds peace in the kangaroo care, and we too live for moments of closeness, but its not enough.

Jen and Jason and their entourage of support long for the day when they strap that baby in their back seat and drive home. I too want to go home.

-END-

You can read more about Juliana's journey as shared by her parents on their blog: jasonandjenpayne.com

Laundry Slave

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For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
-Luke 12:34

Vacuuming is a pain, and I hate doing the dishes, but laundry is the never-ending chore that seems to suck my life away. I hate doing laundry but fortunately I have enough clothes that I can get by with only doing it about once a month.

After switching the laundry from washer to dryer a few weeks ago I felt a sense of accomplishment, “ah, the dreaded chore is almost done.” But then I realized, its not! Because after I pull it out of the dryer I have to haul it back upstairs, fold it, distribute it to the appropriate places—towels in the closet, table cloths and linens in the dining room, clothes to my room—and finally I have to actually put it away in the appropriate drawers. I’m pointing out these seemingly tiny steps because its amazing to me how my false sense of accomplishment will delay for several days or weeks this final destination of my clean laundry from dryer to drawers! It’s not uncommon to find a week old bag of clean laundry unfolded in my room, or clean folded laundry in the living room or bedroom. “It’s soooo close! It’s almost there! Just put it away!”

But then, why bother? The cycle of laundry slavery is just one morning away from starting all over again. I wake up and before I leave the house, all the rejected tops, or bottoms, or belts, etc., are strewn amongst the dirty, or folded-but-not-put-away clothes. My room would be pretty clean most of the time if it wasn’t for all my laundry and shoes all over the place.

And that’s when this joke of laundry slavery stops being so funny. It’s still sort of funny, but now its also really true. My laundry owns so much of my time. Be it the tedious process of cleaning it, or putting it away, to the mornings where I stand in front of my satiated closet lamenting that “I have nothing to wear.” This slavery goes on to infect not only my time but also my mind (and money). I flip through fashion magazines or notice other women and I think about the things I don’t have or I make a mental note of the things I need. But it doesn’t even end there because then I have to shop for these clothes, and when my closet gets too full I have to sort and give these pieces away by the bag full, with usually an article or two that was never worn.

It’s not just my clothes; it’s my shoes too. It’s the jewelry, the must have Mac gadgets, or more music from iTunes. I don’t know, maybe its the American culture of consumerism, or entitlement, or immediate gratification…probably its all those things, but mostly it just makes me feel okay about myself. New clothes make me feel beautiful, successful, wanted…at least for a little while, until I’m home slaving over my pile of finicky fabrics.

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes… But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.
-Luke 12: 22-31

Philosphical mumbo-jumbo

“As for me, all I know is that I know nothing.” -Socrates

Is the scientific mind some how superior to the one that is not?

It seems that the subject of science is left to a mind that while it is capable of grasping large mathematical equations and complex scientific theories, it is a mind that struggles to apply the basic social skills to interact with the world they have mathematically figured out. As much of a generalization as that may be, it is comparable to a mind of people I associate myself that seem to quickly shy away at the very word: multiplication.

It would be like me saying that because I have a mind that understands some of the complexities and implications of interaction between humans that I somehow understand the whole world; including science. To me the world is too complex to divide it into ideas that can be summed up within itself. A building cannot not be built without the collaboration of a variety of minds: scientific and not. It requires the architect, the project manager, the janitor, marketing, the city’s approval…so on and so forth. Every specialty seems to leak its way into another specialty which then leaks its way into another which is evidence that the whole world is complex-ally (Brittnie word…haha) and immeasurably intertwined. Even those that we can trace are only traced so far before we lose sight of its effects.

But maybe this conclusion is meaningless because it is coming from just a person who readily admits they’re lack of understanding about a science of any kind. However, no matter who’s head a mind is beheld I find it small minded to conclude that any one group of people has all the answers to their specialty—be it religion, or science—without acknowledging the effects and importance of the other group …which thus requires me and them to acknowledge that we do not know everything. I cannot know everything about relationships just a s a scientist cannot know everything about science.

In other words, I have no idea what I’m talking about.