The Baby
This morning I hear an echo of the words of Sophia Lyon Fahs, Unitarian Religious Educator and minister who lived to be 101:
…each night a child is born is a holy night, Father and mothers— sitting beside their children’s cribs feel glory in the sight of a new life beginning. They ask, “Where and how will this new life end? Or will it ever end?” Each night a child is born is a holy night— A time for singing, A time for wondering, A time for worshipping.
Just days ago I shared these words on the occasion of Christmas Eve, the celebration of the birth of the baby Jesus. Fahs reminds us that EVERY night a child is born is holy.
I wonder. How about the child in each of us that is born anew in the hope of new beginnings, a fresh start? On this morning when we turn the pages of our calendar upon a New Year, we are each “the New Year’s Baby.”
In images more whimsical we envision the New Year’s baby as a cherubic presence with a banner spanning the length of her birthday suit, wishing us all a Happy New Year! Not quite the same as the image of the child born in Bethlehem under a light that drew shepherds and sages from far away, so strong was the pull of star and story.
The notion of the New Year’s baby crashes whatever party we’re having. She just arrives, as do most babies, ready or not. No stars, no shepherds, no sages, no beatific parents, in fact no parents at all. The New Year’s baby is what we might call an archetype, the embodiment of something more than what meets the eye. Without words, it’s as if he’s proclaiming:
“I’m here. I’m brand new. I bring you another chance. I haven’t a clue.”
Yet the New Year’s Baby, as rendered in the images of 20th century illustrator Norman Rockwell, did have forebodings. He (and Rockwell almost always rendered his New Year’s babies as “he”) appeared on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post at the dawn of year after year as a chubby little Zeitgeist, or, to mangle the translation, a sprite of the times. Just 100 years ago, the cover of the Post held the image of one of the rare female babies. Over one little arm was slung a sizable pocketbook, leaving the other free to hoist high a poster announcing: “Votes for Women.” It would be another eight years before women did win the right to vote, but thanks to the vision of a more progressive Saturday Evening Post than I imagined, a New Year’s baby joined forces with the likes of Susan B. Anthony, Olympia Brown, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, and so many other women who stand tall in the history of this nation and the history of the faith that we share. Who knew the prophetic powers of a baby beyond her years?
A far grimmer child appeared on the cover of the Post at the threshold of 1940. Astride suitcases, with an umbrella in hand and a gas mask across his face, the caption was stark: “Baby New Year Ready for War.”
The January/February 2012 cover of the Saturday Evening Post bears a cover illustration of a woman and her daughter stifling giggles at a man presumably the husband/father, trying hard to button his jacket. The caption? “Lose weight for good!”
If it had been your choice of a cover and the only constraint was a New Year’s Baby, what would she be doing? What would he his prophecy? What would one guess about the nature of our own time from this innocent who would not be altogether innocent?
[Pause]
You have a choice. Who is the New Year’s child inside you? Imagine. Today you were born. Like the child of Bethlehem, like every child, the day of your birth is a holy day. Life is sacred. Your life is sacred. Your birth is cause for celebration. What are you saying? What are you illustrating that is honest about our time and hopeful as you gaze with all the wonder of a child into the future that is the year ahead?
It is the first day of 2012. It is your first day. It is our first day.
We will know changes impossible for us to imagine now. We will know blessings difficult for us to imagine now. We may well know hardships that we’d prefer not to imagine now. We will know days that at year’s end may seem ordinary. But as we take our first steps, may we take comfort and hope from knowing that we might walk together into the ripening of the year ahead. …………………………………………………………..
The Elder
The year is ripe. The New Year’s Baby has become Mother Time/Father Time. In the blink of an eye, days have passed. On some days we’ve paid closer attention than on others to what is before our very eyes, and to that which we smell, hear, taste, and touch. The more intense such days have been, the more likely it is we’ll recall them.
Yet it is the seemingly ordinary days that grow precious as we grow older—sitting down to dinner with your family on a winter’s eve with the snow still blowing and memories of sledding visible on your cheeks…lying on the grass on a summer morning bouncing your child on your tummy as the sun warmed you both….taking your dog for a walk longer than you thought he could possibly make it…the first sip of cider on an autumn afternoon. Sensual all, such ordinary happenings fill the annals of wisdom that we accumulate in the brief course of a single year. Yes, there were the headlines, the personal losses, the communal tragedies, the global anxieties, and the underlying mindfulness and compassion that led the Buddha to declare that life is suffering. Joys and sorrows all, and recognition of the countless variations that lie in between.
Such are the gifts of “the elder.” Such are the gifts of “Mother Time/Father Time.”
My favorite of the New Year’s Baby covers of the Saturday Evening Post is that for the issue of December 31, 1910. The baby is not alone. Father Time bends down as if to say something important to this little one. The old man leans on the pole of his scythe, the tool of so many possibilities that supports him in his aged state. The cherubic child stands assertively as a newsboy, with issues of The Saturday Evening Post tucked under one arm and, with his free arm, he offers an issue to Father Time. Each has something for the other; the Baby with the newest edition, the Elder with his ripened wisdom.
How is each of us, here and now this morning, both baby and elder, both the child of the New Year, prophesying with a chutzpah known only to the uninitiated, and the elder, sharing wisdom known only to the well seasoned? Can such a ripening happen in a year?
For some, it never happens. In the fleeting years of my own life, I’ve discovered that if I pay attention, close close attention, my moments stretch. I find that I am both Baby and Elder, both newborn and perhaps not sage, but more grateful for what is, even when I hope what is isn’t.
As day after extraordinary day flows like a river, may the Child of the New Year and the Elder of the Year Past melt into one another’s arms in the wonder that is Now. So we sang just moments ago:
The past and future ever meet in the eternal now: To make each day a thing complete shall be our New Year’s vow.
I wish you each and all the most amazing First Day, the most memorable fourth day, the most energized 141st day, the most healing 234th day, and in the distinctiveness of 2012, the most mindful and compassionate 366th day.
Amen.
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