Learning this, I am transported immediately to the delivery room of my son. I remember seeing him for the first time and being overwhelmed by the perfection. Understanding that this little person was not someone my husband and I created, but rather a gift provided by the Creator, I have no shame in marveling at him each and every day. He is not perfectly behaved, mind you – he refuses to lay still for diaper changes and he is prone to kick and cry when he doesn’t get his way. But, I can see so clearly the goodness and beauty that is placed inside him, that I have no shame in telling you he is precious, perfect, really. It is my great fear, perhaps every parent’s great fear, that the world will not recognize this preciousness. That somewhere along the way, this light, now oohed and aahed over by others, will dim to the world.
So, my heart breaks in two when I learn the name of the man living at the bus stop, because I feel the grief of his mother. I feel all of her hope on that day in the delivery room, and I see before me the struggles with mental illness and reality of living in a bus stop for months on end. I cannot know all the details that transpired between that day of “perfect” to this moment, but, I know that we have all lost something in that space of time. I know that his mother, in giving him that name, was not only reminding him, but reminding us of what we proclaim to be true: We are each and every one created in the image of God. We are not perfectly behaved, mind you, not a single one of us. But don’t let that blind you. We do carry beauty and goodness inside of us. And, we fail when we do not recognize it in others or ourselves.
“Humanity I love you because you
are perpetually putting the secret of
life in your pants and forgetting
it’s there and sitting down”
-e.e. cummings
