Rediscovering the spiritual roots of midwifery

Rev  Lucyann  Ashdown  

Love and Fear by Michael Leunig

There are only two feelings Love and Fear

There are only two languages Love and fear

There are only two activities Love and fear

There are only two motives, two procedures, two frameworks, two results.

Love and fear Love and fear.

Leunig. M. (1990) A common Prayer: A cartoonist talks to God. Harper Collins, Sydney.

Rev  Lucyann  Ashdown  

 Why has ‘Call the Midwife’ been so popular?

• Evocative

• A past to be proud of

• A more ‘humane’ time in society

• Reminds us why we have an NHS

• Connects with why we became health professionals

• Majority of us have been touched by birth

• A time when people trusted health professionals

Rev  Lucyann  Ashdown  

Underlying Spirituality in ‘Call the Midwife’

Quality of attention Attitude of love

Rooted in Community, trust and love

Rev  Lucyann  Ashdown  

Rev  Lucyann  Ashdown  

‘Look of love’   Loving Gaze ‘’let me see your face and hear your voice; for your voice

is sweet and your face is lovely’ (Song of Solomon 2: 14b)

  Dance between moving toward and moving away   Intimacy and solitude   Relationship   Trust   Knowing self and knowing other   Bears, believes, hopes and endures all things   It is ‘for us’ and generally brings out the best in us.

Rev  Lucyann  Ashdown  

Surveillance   Criminal   Intrusive   Male ‘Gaze’ on object of women’s bodies   Loss of solitude/privacy   Loss of trust   Loss of relationship   Form of control   Element of punishment   We become inhibited/paralysed/are not ‘ourselves’

Rev  Lucyann  Ashdown  

On being stared at!

‘Turn away your eyes from me, for they overwhelm me’ (Song of Solomon 6:5)

Oxytocin as the ‘shy’ love hormone (Odent. M)

‘The Israelites saw Moses, the skin of his face was shining and they were afraid to come near’ (Ex 34:30)

Our souls prefer the tawny light of Rembrandt (O’ Donohue. J)

Rev  Lucyann  Ashdown  

Birth as a sacrament: a time of spiritual emergence

‘look to God and be radiant’

Hypertrophic state in Childbirth and similarity to prayer

Qualities of attention

Integrative: Wholeness, interconnected to one another and wider world

disintegrative – Frightened and self focused

Rev  Lucyann  Ashdown  

How can we continue to bring the quality of attention and love that reflects God’

  Communities of love and prayer

Engage in academic work-health and theology

 Churches

1 john 4:18 perfect love casts out all fear

Rev  Lucyann  Ashdown  

Rev  Lucyann  Ashdown