Ex Substantia Matris

I lie in the half-light, a pillow propping up my back. My baby lies on her side, suckling, her head cradled in the crook of my arm. Her eyes, an undecided color, are wide open, looking into mine. She is curious and uncertain of the world around her, but certain of me. I am always there, nourishing, comforting. She has no doubts.

She is content. I thank God for his goodness that has created such a thing, this wordless bond between mother and child. Satisfying her need is my contentment, a new and joyous feeling for me this third time around.

My first two children were thin and I made milk with difficulty, leaving me with a constant anxiety that even in memory brings the sour taste of adrenaline to my mouth. Their connection to life seemed so tenuous, too dependent on my flawed care and imperfect body. This baby, so plump and round from the beginning, supplies confidence as she luxuriates in life, nestling into it like a sleepy woman into a freshly made bed. My little voluptuary.

I rejoice in the physical joy of holding her as no one else can and sating her trusting hunger. My father said a few weeks ago that the exhausting demands a baby makes on her mother bring with them a privileged closeness that father and baby never have. I have remembered his words often since.

Charles Williams said that God created the world in order to become part of it. The Incarnation was the purpose of creation. From the beginning, God planned to be born of a mother. In John Donne’s sonnet to Mary: “Ere by the spheres time was created thou/ Wast in His mind.” As I hold my baby, I know that in the mystery of God, I am participating in something holy, something planned from the foundation of the world.

The interdependence of mother and child begins a life of inescapable connection with others. Williams called it the “Web of Exchange,” the complex ways in which every life touches all those around it. God made this weave for good, but it is so inextricably a part of creation that even evil shimmers across the web, spread from one person to the next. Evil will touch my baby’s life too – in some ways it already has – but I thank God for the peace and prosperity to hold her in safety for now.

It has become theologically fashionable to speak of God as Mother, a metaphor I haven’t much use for. But I am moved beyond words to know that God made the world in order to have a mother. I look at my tiny helpless baby and I remember God became this, too, and I rest my eyes in praise.