This week at Mass, an infant gnawed the back of the pew in front of me. His hands gripped the wood while his legs jiggled, Jell-O-ish, prone to give out at any moment. Gums locked to the pew, his posture was one of balance and exploration.
We can reach a rare understanding with babies who make eye contact with us in church. No matter that it is their parents who snap them into their car seats, feed them, pick them up, wipe their faces, wash their bibs and put them to bed each night. For this one hour, we may convince ourselves that we are more connected to these young ones than their caregivers are. Their parents, front-facing folk that they are, are oblivious to this. A parent’s arm may periodically correct the child, pulling them back to attention, whereas we know the child’s rightful state is to absorb their surroundings, to make unabashed eye contact, to wonder preverbally who we are and what we are all about.
Indeed, most parents appear to be unaware of their charge’s charms in that moment, while we get to observe the child for the wonder he or she is. The parents are like the person who lives next door to a tourist destination. Every day, fawning visitors ooh and aah and snap photos; for the local, the site is mundane. But that doesn’t mean it is not worthy of awe.
Like a brush with holiness, in the child at church we are party to something that mesmerizes us. We are not wrapped up in its physicality; we are just there to observe it. A newness flutters among us, a grace is given to us, one we did not earn and whose diapers we do not change. We do not need to coddle or care for this loveliness. It’s a beauty that without warning looks us straight in the eye, pierces us.
The mother in the pew in front of me had three children around or on top of her. A small child on her left was making kissy faces to no one in particular, just practicing them in the air. A girl on her lap was bent over, untying the knotted waistline of her mother’s dress. The boy on her right bounced back and forth — the one who had just been gumming the back of the pew. It may seem unusual for lips to touch furniture in that sacred space, but considering the priest had kissed the altar moments before, maybe the boy was paying more attention than we thought.
As he teethed the wood, I thought: Your parents probably wouldn’t want you to be sucking in all those germs, but far be it from me to pry your head off the pew.
Me and the little guy: Ours was a nonphysical understanding. The only real exchange we could have would come if he dropped something — a pacifier or a blankie — which he did. As I picked it up and handed it to his parents, they glanced backward and smiled apologetically. It was their brief window into our relationship; a hand-off of goods is evidence to adults of real connection.
I’d do that and more for you, I thought. I’d happily hold you for some of the hour, invite you to crawl on or under my pew. There never seemed to be an appropriate moment to offer. As close as our bond felt, I cautioned myself that I was still a stranger.
Communication among strangers, parents and young children is often a three-way conversation in restaurants or parks or across airplane aisles. The typical triangle: The stranger acknowledges the child; the parent acknowledges the stranger; the child is restrained by the parent. Church shifts this dynamic. Due to the liturgy and layout, with parents facing forward and babies held backward, the conversation turns two-way. The interaction between one adult and another adult’s child occurs more primally, silently, through raised eyebrows and subtle facial expressions.
I knew our connection would soon break. His mother slung him over her shoulder. I lifted my song sheet: “Oh Lord my God / When I in awesome wonder . . .”
Your eyes give no hint that the celebration is about to end.
“Consider all / The works Thy Hands have made . . .”
For all you know, given your blank stare, it could be just beginning.
Erin Buckley lives in Richmond, Virginia, where she works as an occupational therapist.