Recently, I have learned that ordinary life–that which we memory-verse-reciting haystack-eating types often refer to as "secular" is sometimes not completely separate from "spiritual" life. I am beginning to think that perhaps it is only through our human need to categorize and label things, in essence to understand things through our language, that we even separate these two aspects of life at all. Perhaps what is closer to the truth is that life, in all its complexities, is both sacred and secular most of the time maybe all of the time. 

In the last 8 months, finding myself about to cross one of life’s greatest milestones, I have had the opportunity to give this idea more thought. I am embarking upon one of those rare life experiences which, as hard as I might try to label and categorize it, has taken on its own shape. It is the experience of becoming a mother, and although it is something completely ordinary, completely natural, completely falling into the "secular" category in one sense, it is truly the most "spiritual" experience I have ever been through. However, it has taken me some time to realize this.

When my husband and I first found out that I was going to have a baby, I was filled with fear. I was afraid of what my new life would be like. I was afraid of the image of myself walking around with a diaper bag slung over one arm, a soggy teddy bear under the other, and a slobbering baby around my neck. I was afraid of being pregnant. I was afraid of the radical changes that my body was about to undergo (stretching, growing, bloating, and eventually, the painful bursting-forth). I was afraid of being in charge of an entire person (I am barely capable of being in charge of myself sometimes).

Only weeks into the adventure I knew that this new life inside me was running its own course; nature was busily dividing cells and forming them into little person parts. Already I wondered if everything was working the way it was supposed to. Were the cells dividing the way they should? Were all the right parts going to all the right places? Was the food I could keep down (mostly Top Ramen and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches) making my unborn child strong and healthy, or was it starting him or her prematurely down the destructive path of a carbo-junkie? What kind of mother would I be? Was I capable of the selflessness that was required? Would I be able to give my child everything it needs? Could I be open enough? Could I share enough? Could I love enough? In essence I became so concerned with the mundane, the ordinary, everyday stuff, that I was completely unable to appreciate the miracle that was occurring.

One morning, I remember waking up in the shadow of this fear and anxiety (and the usual nausea, as well). I was busy fretting over my clothing that was growing tighter and my career that was becoming less and less predictable, when suddenly the answer came to me. Suddenly, I knew just what to do to cure myself of the chronic worrying. It was really the only thing to do, but until now it had been overlooked. The answer was to pray.

Prayer has been a practice of mine since before I learned to talk, I’m sure. Before I could even speak my own prayers, I was listening to the rhythmic and comforting hum of my parent’s prayers over dinner and beside my bed. When I awoke with nightmares about wolves and bears, or when I had scary thoughts about the house burning down without the kitty getting out, I would run to my mother, who would always react the same way. She would hold me on her lap and pray with me. So it is not a surprise that over the years, even as my religious beliefs have changed considerably, I have participated in prayer consistently. It is probably the most profoundly spiritual practice that I have maintained throughout my life.

So that morning, I lay there in my bed with the sheets tangled around my legs, the dim morning light peaking through the twisted blinds, my eyes staring at the slim crack in the ceiling, and I prayed as I had when I was a small child. And I knew just what to say. I asked God to make me free and fearless. I asked God to take charge of the person inside me. And as I prayed this simple, short prayer, tears of relief began to fill my eyes and I truly began to feel free. And then, just as quickly, I began to feel tremendous joy! I was finally feeling the immense happiness that creation can bring. By laying my burden down (bedside rather than riverside), I was finally able to feel the pure magic of the experience.

And so it was that I began to awaken to the depth of spirituality in which this experience was shrouded. Because of my fears, I had disallowed myself the connection to the truly sacred side of being pregnant and carrying a child. I had ignored the strange and wonderful beauty that it offers. The act of prayer took away my fear and gave me clarity. It made me able to realize that every day I have with this child is beautiful and precious. I am not in control of it, but I am connected to it. It is a part of me and I am a part of it.

As I sit here today, less than five weeks from the projected date of delivery, feeling what I now know to be a tiny girl person kicking and squirming within me, I am more happy than afraid. Naturally, I still worry. I still wonder what kind of mother I will be and what kind of person she will be. And I still have moments of anxiety over what dangers she faces, both while inside me and outside of me. But these fears are fleeting. They are quickly smothered out by the incomparable pleasure I have of being close to her. My fears no longer compare to the elation of looking at her sonogram pictures and feeling her tiny elbows and knees poke around inside me. Just knowing that in a matter of weeks she will be a whole, kicking, crying, laughing, sleeping person that has come to share my life makes me feel happy beyond reason.

Within this new feeling of freedom and clarity I am able to see so clearly the spiritual value of this experience. Becoming a mother, more than any other experience in my life, has made me realize the undeniable presence of God. Perhaps, by identifying myself in this uniquely creative role–the role of mother, the carrier of human life–I am able to identify more closely with God’s role as creator of all things. Perhaps God too feels afraid for all the dangers that await his children. Knowing that they are unique spirits, creatures of their own instincts and desires, perhaps God too holds his breath as he watches his creation evolving in strange and independent directions. Surely God, as the ultimate designer of life and all its wonderful complexities, must know the immeasurable love that the act of creation engenders. What a privilege that I can share this experience. What a great fortune that through this I am allowed a glimpse into God’s experience–a small sampling of God’s abundant love.

Through this rare spiritual awakening I am looking at the world differently. I look at my parents now with new eyes. I see their joy and their fear and their struggles and their successes as they made their way through the experience of parenting. Sometimes I catch myself hoping that my little girl will love me as much as I love my mother–the woman who held me inside her for nine months, who taught me the gift of prayer. And sometimes I find myself hoping that she will feel as proud of me as I did when I listened with six-year-old ears to my father explain to me the science of the solar eclipse or watched him at work in the garage as he carefully cut lumber for my playhouse. I selfishly want to be loved and admired the way that I do my own parents. I guess we all want that. And now that I not only recognize, but welcome and appreciate, the
spirituality of becoming a mother, I can savor the profound effect that this baby is having on me. Not yet out of my womb, she is already speaking to me. She is re-creating my connection with my husband, with my parents, and with my God. She is opening my eyes to the strength of prayer and to the liberation it offers. She is bringing all things closer. Already I am listening to the sounds of the world through her ears; I am seeing the sights of this life through her eyes. My every day world is a spiritual world.