Wombs generating wombs through countless eons link us in a chain of consequence,
each link a binding of responsibility.
Each embryo erupts within a cumbering cage of chromosomes,
entangling us in adaptations to forgotten worlds,
Each world still leaving marks within the genes and protein of our being,
the gates of Eden locked against our longing for a life to come.
And yet
Beyond the wombs, beyond the burden of abortive pasts,
We find a promise of a womb immaculate,
original
embracing all.
We come to light with screams of joy,
borne within the double helix of God’s grace.
~
In a sermon a few weeks ago, our new Pastor, Wil Posey, referred, almost in passing, to “the double helix of God’s grace.” The phrase has rattled around in my mind ever since, finally gestating into this poem. It really reflects a constant theme in the back of my mind in which, to carry forward Thomas Aquinas’s phrase, our nature is transformed, yes “perfected,” into a graceful life. We are often mesmerized by attention to our ancestry, where we came from, what has caused us to be. But this is always only the beginning. The question is what we are becoming? The past is all there. The DNA still coils in and around us, but there is also another coil of DNA, the “double helix of God’s grace,” that is borning us anew. That’s what it’s about for me. It may say something else to you. Let us know.
I’ve been spending a lot of time inventorying a large collection of family archives to cull, copy, and organize for the wider family and descendants. No wonder the double helix is on my mind! I’ll report back on that in due course. Some of them go back to the mid nineteenth century and earlier, so give me time.