8. Epilogue, Fractal Five: Visitation by a Paradox

In the throes of labor with my first child and in that deeply meditative state that only childbirth has ever evoked in me, I seemed to perceive a presence in the room that I have since lovingly and jokingly referred to as “The Cosmic Placenta.”

In my mind, it appeared as a rough-edged gray cloud that was both curiously flat but occupying space within the room. It had effervescent rainbow flickers chasing along its edges, leading me to intuit it was profoundly colorful, just not in any spectrum I could perceive. It was also hovering at the ceiling within the room, but was clearly (somehow) much, much bigger than the room. It was a curious combination of alert and inert; as agile as a fish but completely motionless. It seemed to be made of undiluted and elemental generativity and potential, as if chaos and order had found a way to emulsify and coexist.

I knew it was there to witness the birth, just as I somehow knew it did this for all births.

I have since come to understand this experience in the context of my ministerial formation. The most accurate description I can come up with is that it was Witness. Pure Presence. This experience now informs my understanding of and aspirations for an effective ministry of presence, and helps me to understand the profound power held in simple acts of with-ness. This is the telos of hospitality in brief. The power of with-ness is antithetical to polarization. And vice versa.

Since that day, the idealism of my younger self has been tempered by a growing belief in a morally neutral universe. I believe less in inevitable salvific outcomes, and more in the body as a crucible of redemption and healing; I'm less concerned with the ideas or abstractions of a presumed afterlife and more interested in the trials and joys we experience that are part of a cyclical narrative of matter and energy playing with each other, manifesting as the worlds we observe and the infinitude we can’t. The birth of galaxies and the collapse of stars. Ice ages and edens, the inhale and exhale of human drama told in golden hours and holocausts.

Perhaps it is enough for us to be here, to experience, to try.

This is the eigth and final installment in a multi-part series on the constructive theology behind a "Ministry of Small Things." Go back to Part 1 for the whole thing.