childbirth

Navigating agency and surrender with my namesake, the mother of God

Accepting the call to Black motherhood without averting my eyes from the spectacle of Black death

Both Agnes Howard and Brittany Bergman encourage reflection on a transformational experience.

Using case studies, Dána-Ain Davis shows how medical racism hurts black women.

I see love incarnate in suffering flesh, a body bearing a body in pain for love.

The Red Sea, the baptistery, and the birth canal

She gave birth to a son in the back of a squad car.

I don’t have the nerve to stand up on Christmas Eve and preach about the choreography of childbirth, but I wish I did.

I wish I had the nerve to preach about Mary’s increased estrogen production, a few days before birth (estrogen that will soften her cervix, and help her blood coagulate after delivery). I wish I had the nerve to preach about Mary’s and Jesus’ pituitary glands producing oxytocin, which in turn allows Mary’s contractions to accelerate.

Isaiah doesn't politely, abstractly compare God to a mother giving birth. The text suggests that God squats and pants and bellows like a moose.

Preaching on biblical passages about labor and childbirth is important, but it's also dangerous.

I got the epidural. As the pain receded, I felt an ache of disappointment settle in.

One in four pregnancies ends in miscarriage. But as United Methodist
pastor Elise Erikson Barrett points out, we don’t much like to talk
about miscarriage.