There has been a lot of adoption blog buzz about this thread and specifically this reply post:
"I have a dear friend who has adopted 2 children, within 1 1/2 years of each other. She tells me all the time that her 'motherly instinct' kicked in with them the minute she held them. And being the wonderful friend that I am, I told her of course it did, they're your children. When in my head, I was thinking how could this woman possibly know what a motherly instinct really is when she has never had a child??? Evil bitch that I am.
Eh...point is, I can't bring myself to adopt a child. Not after having one of my own. I can not at this point convince myself that I could love a child that wasn't 'of' me. Nancy"
Nancy is not alone. There is a soul disease in our culture that renders people unable to envision Love in it's purest, self sacrificial form. To declare one's own ability to love to be bound and defined by the confines of our tiny experience of 'self' is extreme narcissism, something I struggle with as well. Even so, it is revealing that Nancy pre-emptively cuts herself off from the possibility she is even capable of another experience of love. I am achingly sad for her and for anyone who lingers in such a stunted state. Could this be one basis for depression or despair?
Simply, it is Love's possibility that makes life worth living. That's it folks in a nutshell, the very meaning of life.
In Nancy's defense, I honestly believe she has no idea the implications of her brief blog post. I am almost positive she has not developed a serious introspection contemplating Love. In fact the very word is just so vague in our modern consciousness. I have so many more thoughts on this and I just can't reign them in right now. I am thankful to be thinking about it though. I should add that this guy seems to explain it very well. The first part is especially helpful in defining and describing Love, but this is the kicker:
Love embraces the whole of existence in each of its dimensions, including the dimension of time. It could hardly be otherwise, since its promise looks towards its definitive goal: love looks to the eternal. Love is indeed “ecstasy”, not in the sense of a moment of intoxication, but rather as a journey, an ongoing exodus out of the closed inward-looking self towards its liberation through self-giving, and thus towards authentic self-discovery and indeed the discovery of God
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
I could not agree with you more, Tracy. As and adopted child, I can tell you that my mother may not have given birth to me, but I am HER child. She loved me as much as any mother could love a child. The "not of my body" was never even given a thought. I believe that only someone who is open to the true idea of love and what it brings can understand adoption.
Wow. Beautifully said Tracy.
Thanks for saying putting into words what so many of us were only thinking.
Fact is, I was so flabbergasted by the narrowness of Nancy's state of mind, that I was speechless.
I have given birth to 4 children. The love I have for my daughter I have not yet held, is just intense as it has been for my older children.
Holly
It is so sad to read what Nancy had written. I have an almost 4 year old biological daughter and am currently in the process of adopting a little girl from China. Too bad Nancy won't know the joy that I will in meeting our second child.
Post a Comment