It's been a while - again. But I have to thankfully say that life has been busy in a good way. I'm chasing a 14 month old very busy little girl around the apartment, and in the meantime trying to keep house. It's a big joke really :)
My grandfather, a doctor, was once asked if he believed in G-d. He said 'yes'. How did he know? 'Because he delivered babies - and it was clear to him because of that there was a G-d'. He wasn't a religious man in the traditional sense, but to him the miracle of birth was truly a miracle.
Now I understand. It is amazing to be a part of that miracle. It's mind-numbing and awe-inspiring. We take it for granted these days. Babies are born all the time. Every so often we hear about something terrible happening at birth, but thankfully it's not the norm. Since it's not the norm, we assume that all births go well - for both the mother and the child. Going through the experience myself - not only the birth, but also the 9 month preceding it - I could see all those things that could possibly go wrong throughout the process. This is certainly not a miracle to take for granted. My grandfather was absolutely right.
So my little miracle is now learning about the world around her. What to touch, what not to touch. Discovering the taste of new foods and how that new food feels squished in her little fingers. We take these things all for granted. We barely notice the food in our mouths as we chew - we're probably too busy watching television or reading our email. To her all these things are new and exciting.
As adults we're also looking for new and exciting things to do - maybe traveling, maybe bungee jumping, who knows... but we're always looking for new experiences. Perhaps though, we're missing the obvious. Maybe we should take a moment to take those things we take for granted and look at them again with different eyes. Let's think about the taste of the food as we're chewing it. Let's think about how amazing our body is that it can process that intake of food and convert it into energy for our everyday activities. It really is amazing. And that our bodies are capable of getting rid of the waste - imagine if it couldn't - we'd be in real trouble. From the moment we wake up in the morning until the time we drop off to sleep at night - our day is a real miracle. A miracle we take for granted.
