Wisdom from a Biblical Midwife and a Modern Climate Activist
Genesis 35:16-17 They left Bethel. They were still quite a ways from Ephrath when Rachel went into labor—hard, hard labor. When her labor pains were at their worst, the midwife said to her, “Don’t be afraid—you have another boy.”
The morning I contemplated this verse it was summer. A mother duck and her six ducklings ventured cautiously onto my patio and launched one by one into the small pond I inherited from the previous owner. The babies, more like duck teenagers, did a sitting dive, simply tipping forward into the pond. Water droplets clung to their soft down, the early morning sunlight making a tiny prism through the water. The scene was so beautiful, I wept.
In my neighborhood there are many ponds, and I had seen countless mother ducks and their babies waddle by. Sometimes a mother would have as many as eight to ten babies in her wake. But once, I noticed a mother duck who had only one. The numbers decrease as the babies get older. One evening I watched a neighborhood cat sitting on the edge of a rock, watching a family of ducks in the water. So many dangers lurking. So many ways death waits for us.
This passage from the Bible on fear is unlike the previous ones. It’s not God talking, it’s Rachel’s midwife, which feels much less comforting, especially because what happens next is that Rachel dies giving birth to her second child, Benjamin.
How can this be a verse of comfort? A mother’s life is ebbing from her even as she brings new life into the world. What will become of the baby? How will the family recover from this catastrophe? The worst possible thing is happening. Death has arrived.
As I was struggling with this verse, I listened to an interview by Krista Tippett with Colette Pichon Battle, an activist/attorney/peacemaker who works with lawmakers, international bodies, and communities to turn the tide, however slightly, away from climate catastrophe. Acknowledging the despair that comes from knowing what is happening to our planet, Colette Pichon Battle said that what allows her to keep working is her belief the work she does is spiritual. She said:
The challenge requires us to recognize a power greater than ourselves and a life longer than the ones we will live. It requires us to believe in the things we are privileged enough not to have to see.
This is hard to think about, to hold in our mind—that without our action today, there will be coming disasters we will not have to witness. But in Pichon Battle’s words there is also a deep call to love our neighbor who lives in the future, people who will be alive long after we are not.
These were the words that came to mind when I read the midwife’s words to Rachel. Their wisdom—and hope—lies not in ignoring the cruel reality of death, but in urging her dying mistress to think of the life that will outlast her. The midwife’s words point to our lives being part of a much bigger story, a story of God loving God’s creation not just in the span of our lifetimes, but throughout the infinity of Creation.
Fear keeps me focused on protecting the clay vessel that I am. I become fixated on averting personal disaster, warding off individual harm, even though I know, no matter what, death awaits.
What might it mean for my life, for the way I live each day, if instead of seeing my life as a vessel containing a finite amount of water that must be carefully preserved and contained, I saw it instead as part of the ocean? How would I spend my days if my goal was in service of the ocean?
