"To Jubilee Way"

Forgive us for this broken world
That we have passed along to you.
Our damaged hearts and homes reflect
A tragic mess we can’t undo.

At times, our hope is dashed beneath
The wreckage wrought by hate and fear,
And pride and greed are placed ahead
Of all that we should hold most dear.

But there is comfort, our dear child,
For healing can be found in he
Who delves into this broken mess
To blast the sounds of Jubilee.

Forgiveness is his serenade
That lifts us out of needless strife,
And freedom is proclaimed to those
Whose chains have choked away their life.

We pray that you would hear this tune
Because his healing work begins
When we trace back this world’s deep cracks
To their true source, which lies within.

And then, with all who came before
Who follow in his lowly Way,
We pray that you would join the work
That ushers in redemption day.

Jubilee's Birth Story: Dad's Perspective

I got the email Tuesday at 8:23am, right at the end of 1st Period.

According to my contraction app I'm averaging one every ten minutes since you left for work.... Don't tell anyone or freak out cause I don't know if it will continue to increase, but fyi..  =)

“Don’t freak out.”  Like that was ever going to happen.

I did manage to teach the rest of my classes for the day, wholly distracted, incessantly checking my phone, and calling every chance I got.  When the bell rang at 2:25, I got on my bike and booked it home.

Alissa was a picture of peace and calm when I arrived.  She had done a few loads of laundry and had even graded some quizzes for me.  I was neither peaceful nor calm when I frantically burst in the door, but she assured me that there was no cause for panic.  Her contractions were still spaced far enough apart, and the pain wasn’t too intense.  We ate an early dinner, and she, in typical Alissa fashion, decided to bake some cookies.  But since she had been having contractions for most of the day, we called the hospital around 6:00, and they advised that we make the trip in.

We quickly got our things together, called a taxi, and headed to the hospital.  We left around 7:00, and traffic was still pretty bad.  But, things still didn’t seem all that urgent.  When we arrived after a 45 minute stop-and-go ride, we checked in at the birthing unit, and the nurses checked her dilation and contractions.  To Alissa’s dismay, she was told that she was not dilated even a centimeter, and that most of what she was experiencing probably weren’t even contractions.  The nurses scoffed and sent us home, saying that maybe labor would really kick in in the next day or two.

Frustrated, we got in a taxi to start the journey home.  All the while, Alissa still felt contractions coming on, seemingly stronger than the ones before, and she wondered aloud whether we should just stay in a hotel near the hospital.  But with the nurses knowing chides in our heads, we slumped back home.  Boy, do we wish that we would have trusted Alissa’s gut.  No pun intended.

We got home at 9:30, and Alissa went straight to bed.  Her hope was to try to sleep through some of the contractions and store up her strength.  Without much sense of urgency, I slowly got ready for bed, and got out my computer.  Then, all hell broke loose.

At about 10:30, Alissa shot up out of bed and instinctively ran to the toilet.  While she was scuttling on her way, she yelled out at me to clean something up.  Then, in an ignorant daze, I realize what had happened.  Her water had broken.  I immediately went to the bathroom and reached for some toilet paper.  Understandably annoyed, Alissa yelled, “What are you doing?? Get a towel!”  With my panic level elevating by the second, I grabbed a towel and looked to survey what had really happened.  Without being too graphic, let’s just say that quite a lot of liquid needed to be cleaned up - all over the bed and on the floor all the way to the bathroom.

The next five minutes were among the most stressful of my life.  Alissa was on the toilet and started getting the shakes.  Her contractions immediately began ramping up in intensity.  Totally unable to decide what to prioritize, I began cleaning the floor, ripping the sheets off the bed, ordering another taxi on my phone, making sure we still had everything packed, and calling our doctor to say we were coming back to the hospital.  When the taxi arrived in front of our house, I grabbed our bags, and Alissa grabbed a towel.  We threw the bags in the taxi, Alissa eased her way strategically on top of the towel, and I told our mind-mannered taxi driver in broken Thai: “Samitivej hospital. Baby coming now. Go fast.”

Alissa’s pain continued to elevate, and within a minute into the journey, she exclaimed that she wasn’t sure if she could make it to the hospital.  All I could do was panic and pray, and I managed to send a quick text to our family: “Water broke and we’re heading back now.  Pray we make it please.”  Then, in a scene fit for a movie, Alissa screamed out in periodic pain and I prayed unceasing terrified prayers as we careened through Bangkok’s crowded streets, both of us envisioning the horror of delivering a baby in the backseat of a taxi.  We thanked the Lord when we made it there at 11:15 after a record-breaking 25 minute taxi ride.

Needless to say, we arrived in a manner very different from our calm and unsure visit earlier that evening.  With Alissa in a wheelchair, we burst into the same birthing unit, and were met with startled looks from the same nurses we saw only two hours before.  Alissa got changed, and we quickly got things situated in the labor room.  When the nurse checked Alissa’s dilation once more, the nurse looked up wide-eyed and startledly exclaimed, “Unbelievable!”  She was 5 cm dilated.

For about 30 minutes, Alissa stayed on her feet and changed positions as she closed her eyes and quietly endured the increasingly painful contractions.  I did my best to help, encourage, and send a few scattered texts updating family.  She felt a lot of pain in her back, so the nurses eventually offered her the birthing tub to ease some of the pain.  This did the trick at first, but after awhile, she began to overheat in the hot water.  Then, already wearied and spent, she moved to the low-lying bed.  I applied a cold washcloth to her face and encouraged her to drink water, and an absolute champion of a nurse massaged her lower back.  Her dilation was soon checked once more, and we were pleased to hear that she had jumped to 7 cm.

Then, Alissa hit a wall. While laboring on the bed, she entered the worst of it - the “transition” stage of labor, which is said to be the most painful.  From my perspective, the only thing I can compare it to is an athlete utterly spent at the end of a marathon.  Her energy seemed completely drained, and the contractions were super intense.  She hit 8 cm, but struggled to move beyond this point.  For about two hours, she alternated lying on either side, with her eyes closed, in a meditative, near comatose state.  After awhile, she felt the urge to push, but the doctor encouraged her to fight the urge because she was not fully dilated.  Up until now, Alissa seemed confident in her strength, but she began to doubt herself, pleading with me that she wasn’t sure if she could do it.

Finally around 4:00am, after what seemed like an eternity of waiting, our doctor gave her the green light.  We helped her onto her back, and with a remarkably renewed sense of energy, Alissa began to push.  After the first push, the doctors and nurses seemed pleasantly surprised at what they saw, and they began to prep the room for the birth.  Then, after a few rounds of contractions and pushing, we got into a rhythm.  I counted 10 second intervals aloud during each contraction as our doctor, the two nurses, and I implored her to push hard.  After a mere 7 or 8 rounds, the head was visible, and from there, it happened in a veritable instant.  One push.  The head.  Another push.  The shoulders.  A final push. She was out.  A few seconds later, a whimpered crying filled the room.  Jubilee Way had entered the world.

A letter, finally penned

I've written many letters to you in my head over the years, an incredible amount over the last 9 months. Sitting on the bus composing away, combing all my thoughts and feelings to find the best words to express what it is I want to say.

But every time I bring pencil to paper (or more oft, fingers to keyboard) I'm at a loss. Where to start?

Should I start with how I'm one of those girls that didn't ever really decide that I would or wouldn't be a mom- I just started mothering one day, and haven't really stopped since. (I'm sure countless would roll their eyes, sigh, and nod their heads...not everybody wants to be mothered.). But we knew, your dad and I, that we wanted children-a big (or small) home with doors wide open and a place that many would call home. We dreamt of a family and have prayed daring and difficult prayers about what our family will look like. And now you are at the door, will arrive at almost any moment. And we are so happy it is you.

But in saying that, I fear I must confess there was a time, a few years back, when I declared I wouldn't choose to mother a daughter. I think because I know what it is to be a girl. Sometimes I am afraid you won't be anything like me-that I will make you roll your eyes and stomp your feet (and well...I'm sure I will), other times I'm terrified that you will be like me- oh what a difficult burden that will be to bear... What an impossibly large thing to imagine- this blessing and responsibility to raise a child in the way she should go. A few years ago, your dad and I were sitting in our candle lit house on our little island at the edge of the world, and as your father read aloud from the Tongan dictionary (yes, he has always been this way-let's you and I make fun of him together) we both suddenly knew who it was we would be waiting for.

When we first said your name, I knew it was right. That we would have this beautiful baby girl and she would hopefully be so much like her father (who is far gentler, more patient, and kind than I) and from me take just a pinch of my passion and spunk (because that's really all you would need). And I've known, and I guess in some seasons, just hoped, that you would come, and that God is preparing for you some amazing things.

I thought I would be the kind of pregnant woman that was ALL about my pregnancy. What I'm eating, how much I'm sleeping-reading the books and taking the classes. I thought I would jump in to it 110%, because, well, I tend to be a 110% type of person. But in some ways I'm so glad that you came in this season. Because a few years ago, I wasn't ready  was less ready to be a mom than now. I was not so sure of myself, not so ...grounded. And I think I would have been ALL ABOUT you, in an unhealthy way, in a way that my sense of purpose and completion would have needed to come from you. I don't want that for you, and I don't want that for me. Maybe I am still not so grounded, but I know me so much more than I did. And I'm so happy to say that you will be loved and adored by me, but I will continue to be more than just "Baby Coop's mother". I hope and pray that you will see this in a positive and inspiring way as you grow older.

When I told your dad that we were (finally!) pregnant, he literally danced and jumped and smiled and screamed around the living room. I just want you to picture your dad doing that for a moment, because it is just so sweet and just so him. I'm pretty sure from Day 1 he called you by name-never doubted you were our baby girl we dreamed up and hoped for. I went along with this but as the time came nearer to hearing the gender from the doctors, I made myself switch to gender neutral names. Not your dad- he knew that he knew. His face was priceless in the doctor's office when we finally got the confirming news- a girl! He mocked my "lack of faith" and has been bursting with the pure joy of you since.

When I learned I was pregnant I tried to become more aware of my days-of my body, my habits, my emotions, my thoughts. The week I found out I was pregnant with you I had a call from a colleague who offered counselling services to the people we served. She had been on the phone with a young woman who was on the roof of her building (holding her infant child) and threatening to jump. As she coached me over the phone about what to say, I walked towards the building and up those steep stairs. I was a bundle of thoughts and feelings- Heart pounding, adrenaline racing, despair of the deepest kind, and fear. And always then and since then I have thought of you- my baby whom I love and am meant to protect. I have tried my best to manage my emotions- the fear and stress and anger, but it has been difficult and I have felt them all the more fully to realize what it is I would do for you, and the things I witness others doing to someone else's babies. Let the world cry out with the injustice of it all.

I have been worried and distracted by this job. And because of that, this is just the first actual written letter to you. Because of that, instead of hanging decorations in your nursery today, I did H's laundry  (because he flies soon and I have all his belongings since his arrest to the detention center). At the end of the day, baby you will not know if all of the pictures were hung and the room was pristine before your arrival or a few weeks later. But I am sorry, all the same, that I carried you through these things I have carried you through, that I have not always had the time to savor every moment of you and this pregnancy, and that maybe some of your perceptions of this world are already skewed a bit dark. We can talk about it all one day-but in the meantime I'm just giving it to God.

You are at the door, will arrive at almost any moment. We are filled with so much joy and anticipation. You have what feels like hundreds of "brothers" and "sisters" waiting to meet you. Not to mention grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and so many others who already love you to pieces. We can't wait to meet you, hold you, kiss you, even though we aren't quite sure what we will do with you yet. I guess we will learn together.

With abounding love,

your mama

In Memoriam, [Ring out, wild bell

Lord Alfred Tennyson, 1809 - 1892

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
   The flying cloud, the frosty light:
   The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
   Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
   The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind
   For those that here we see no more;
   Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
   And ancient forms of party strife;
   Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
   The faithless coldness of the times;
   Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
   The civic slander and the spite;
   Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
   Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
   Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
   The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
   Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

Mark shared this poem when he spoke at church a few weeks ago. Reflecting on it again as we prepare for this new year. 

New Year's Song- Over the Rhine



January White- Sleeping at Last