TruthBook Religious News Blog

A Christian Science perspective on daily life.

from the June 24, 2008 edition

Is childbirth solely a physical event requiring a medical environment? In the United States today, over 99 percent of all births occur in a hospital setting; 97.5 percent in Britain. Consequently, the dominant view – at least in those countries – leans heavily toward the physical, medical, technological, and human emotion aspects of birth.

But there's more to bringing a child into the world. There's a spiritual dimension that, like the spiritual realities of life itself, needs to be more widely understood – for humanity's health and welfare.

Let's examine some of the common fears that would draw thought toward a strictly material concept of birth and consider how to address them prayerfully.

Pregnancy and childbirth are physical events, involving material growth and development:

When it is clearly understood that all creation has its source in God, the only Creator, then material growth and physicality lose their predominance in thought. Expectant parents can care for their child from the very first, cherishing the child's spiritual individuality and origin. They can also glimpse the fact that they and the child share the same divine Parent, and that this relationship frees them from a false sense of responsibility or fear of the unknown. As God's ideas, we reflect His creative power, but we're not personal creators.

Childbirth is painful and unpredictable:

A curse that traces back to the allegory of Adam and Eve shouldn't continue to haunt women. This verse from Isaiah provides comfort and reassurance: "Shall I bring to the birth, and not cause to bring forth? saith the Lord: shall I cause to bring forth, and shut the womb? saith thy God" (66:9). The notion that childbirth is a painful event suggests a separation from divine Love, which knows no pain for its creation. Divine Love rejoices in the constant and harmonious appearing of each idea and would never promote an environment of discomfort.

Childbearing involves two beings, mother and child, who could potentially harm each other:

In the same paragraph on scientific obstetrics, Mrs. Eddy wrote, "Though gathering new energy, this idea cannot injure its useful surroundings in the travail of spiritual birth." Mother and child can witness how divine Life sustains and provides for its ideas. There can be no added strain, no depletion of life. And with the expression of God's creative power comes a natural harmony and order.

The best counsel anyone can hope for rests in the direct relationship to the Creator that all individuals have to nourish and learn from. We are, in St. Paul's memorable words, "all the children of God" (Gal. 3:26).

Adapted from the Christian Science Sentinel.

Labels: Childbirth, Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, spirituality