what have we found ourselves in?
Now that (unless God has some quite surprising other plans) my own childbearing season has come to an end, I've been thinking a lot about the plethora of spiritual parallels woven throughout the perinatal period. As Shakespeare wrote in As You Like It , "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players." This line introduces a monologue that details the "stages" of life, starting in infancy and ending in "second childishness and mere oblivion; sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything." But what if "all the world's a stage" with a divine Playwright and Casting Director? What if all our life stages and stories are merely shadows of Reality? What if what we're acting out is pointing to something else? What if there's evidence of Truth all around, infused into our daily lives? What if these analogies and metaphors and allegories are there to give us glimpses of the God who made it all? Pregnancy, child...