Meeting Lux

We spent a good five hours with Cait and Björn and our newborn grand-daughter Lux yesterday afternoon in Rotterdam, arriving only ten hours after Lux’s birth. We were astonished how energetic Cait and Björn were -- the kind of excitement that comes from being in a state, despite a sleepless night and hours of labor, of overwhelming astonishment and joy. It was the same for Nancy and me. We could hardly take our eyes off Lux. Lux took it all very calmly. Most of the time we were there she slept, first on Nancy’s lap, later on mine. I kept stroking her cheek with one finger -- skin silkier than silk, and just a little more dense than air.

I was reminded of a passage from the writings of Alexander Schmemann: "Every birth, every entrance of a new human being into the world, every life, is a miracle of miracles, a miracle that explodes all routine, for it marks the start of something unending, the start of a unique, unrepeatable human life, the beginning of a new person. And with each birth, the world is itself in some sense created anew and given as a gift to this new human being to be her life, her path, her creation."

If you don’t mind looking at photos of people besides themselves with happiness, there is a folder of pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimforest/sets/72157617052557111/

(The photo above was taken by Björn shortly after Lux's birth at the Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam.)

Jim

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