unique + unrepeatable

Hello friends,

January is a hard, cold month and if you have been keeping up with the news, the humans in January seem to be hard and cold as well. But that is not what I want to write about. I don't want to add to the cold or the hard. 

credit: cassie pease

Instead, have you ever considered the fact that if you would have been conceived at a different moment, you would not be you? Really. A moment of difference and you would not exist. Perhaps a completely other human being would be here. Or perhaps no one. But either way, you would not be here.

I want to talk about your uniqueness. Your identity. Your unrepeatability.

You are not a sum of your biology or your cultural identity. You are not simply a brilliant mix of your mother and father-- as good, significant, and life giving as those things are.

Nor are you a sum of your life experiences, memories, and choices-- as essential as those are for the way you see the world and yourself.

We often think of ourselves in materialistic ways--that we are the sum of our parts; a little bit of my mother here, a little bit of my father here, this transformative life experience there all add up to make me the person I am. And I understand the desire to find our identity in these things and make sense of ourselves in these details. But the reality is that this only gives us a partial picture, that truly we are and forever will be a mystery even to ourselves.

Amid the cliches I am using please do not be tempted to think to yourself that we are like snowflakes or sunrises or something. We are most definitely not like snowflakes or sunrises. A snowflake, we are told, is utterly unique. And that is cool--seriously a wonder of creation. But given enough time and energy, a snowflake is repeatable. A clone of a person, were scientists ever to do such a thing (and let us pray they don't), will be an utterly different person. We are not the sum of our parts.

If you went to Catholic school or grew up in a Christian culture of any kind you have probably heard this all before. Each person has God-given dignity. And all of this is true and in some sense I believed it, but I didn't really get it--get it in the sense of feeling it in my marrow--until I started really digging in to adoption. 

In order to have a home study approved hopeful adoptive parents are required to take a certain number of education hours on adoption, and being the person I am I have also read virtually all of the recommended reading too (most of which I would not recommend). In the classes and the literature there is a lot of discussion of the "split" in the identity of the adopted child--the split of biography and biology. The important reminder that adoption is always borne of brokenness. I spent a lot of time before we were licensed to adopt and since, considering how to help our children come to understand themselves even with this split. 

On the other hand, every form of brokenness is an opportunity of an unimaginable grace... and I have come to realize that this is precisely one of the great graces of adoption: the recognition and appreciation of the gift of the mystery of each child. 

The fact is that you were you from the moment of your conception--unique and unrepeatable.  The psychologists and social workers who write the books and teach the courses make it seem as if we are made up of half nature, half nurture. But that is not reality. My brothers, who for my whole life have been some of the greatest blessings, with whom I share biology and a biography could not be more different than I am or from each other. We are each unique individuals, with a beautiful bond of blood and history. 

Strangers often comment on whether our daughter looks like me or my husband or guessing where her empathy or fiesty personality comes from. I can smile and honestly say that it is all hers. In constantly trying to make sense of ourselves or our children ("she gets that from me" or "those are my husband's eyes" or "I have my father's temper") and we sometimes forget the absolute gift and mystery of who we are. We are not simply a blend of our father and our mother (adoptive, biological or otherwise)!  I get the privilege of constantly being in wonder at the uniqueness of our daughter. Sure, sometimes I see that she resembles a look that I have seen in her birth mother and I take joy in that knowledge. Sometimes I hear her say something just like I have heard Tim say it, and I take joy in that too. But mostly we are in awe of the wonder of who she is. 

I have noticed that parents of lots of children get this too. Each individual is unique and mysterious. From the moment of conception. This is why miscarriages are so very sad and why abortions are such a tragedy. Each child, from the moment of conception, is irreplaceable. The heart of abortion--the lie of abortion--is the same lie in our culture that tells us that we are at the core replaceable, that we are replicable. The response to that lie is not to count the numbers or statistics, but is to witness to love. When we are loved and when we love we begin to undo that harmful mentality that tells us that the world would be just as good without us in it.  

Pope Benedict is quoted as saying: If an individual is to accept himself, someone must say to him: “It is good that you exist” – must say it, not with words, but with that act of the entire being that we call love.

[Humanity] was not just thrown up into the world by some quirk of evolution. The underlying truth is that each person is meant to exist. Each person is God’s own idea. 

You, too, are irreplaceable. In case you need to read it today "It is good that you exist"

Be well,

Jessi