In some ways, my new life is a kind of death. I’m not someone who longed for a baby, who had my sights set on a vocational place in the home. I did/do believe children are a gift and I did/do believe in making our bodies open to that gift in radical ways. But staying with Scout has been harder than I expected. There is no time for myself, no time for the things that build up in my head. Books are interrupted by my wonderfully curious daughter. GRE flashcards are disheveled and gnawed upon. I missed the opportunity to meet John Swinton because Scout was horribly ill. Halden is trying to read all of Dogmatics; I’ll be happy to get through The Royal Priesthood by the end of the month.

One book that has helped me to meditate on the experience of this season is Hans Reinders newest addition to the diability theology canon, Receiving the Gift of Friendship. One of my favorite quotes comes from the mother of severly disabled boy who reflects on what it meant to be his caregiver:

For many, many years, I was confined to the house; alone and without the support of relative or friends. My husband was at work all day and I was with Oliver and the other five children. This enforced seclusion was difficult for me; I had a restless, seeking spirit. Through Oliver I was held still. I was forced to embrace the silence and solitude where I could ‘prepare the way of the Lord.’ Sorrow opened my heart, and I ‘died.’ I underwent this ‘death’ unaware that it was a trial by fire from which I would arise renewed – more powerfully, more consciously alive.

I don’t think this experience is specific to those who care for the disabled. Anyone who is charged with the monotony of the stuff that makes up the church can relate to Mrs de Vinck. I suppose that’s where all the women in theology have gone. Most of us are out caring for babies, making meals for the parishoner who just had a child, visiting the home of the elderly member to administer the sacraments. (At least that’s what Amy Laura Hall says.)

The bloggy list of Michael Westmoreland-White appears to confirm this suspicion. Most of the women on the list (many fellow Duke grads of note) are very much “out there” doing theology: sisters of the Roman rite, pastors in the city. Those who seem to be of the more traditional, heady variety were professional students. This is probably why I’m interested in returning to theology in this way. I’ll have the space I desire and someone will be paying me to explore it.

Interestingly, I don’t expect the marginality of theology that pertains to the gritty stuff of parenting to end with three more letters to my name. I was recently told that a favorite female theologian was called a “cream puff” by a fellow (male) faculty member at a committee meeting. Ironically, she was on her way to an interview for a tenured position at Yale. Regardless, my expectations of being “taken seriously” are low.

So I am left to hope that in the midst of caring for my infant daughter the Holy Spirit will transform me through this encounter with virtue, that in the end I’ll be a better theologian for the wear. But now I have to go. Someone is biting my ankles.