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Claire Pandaleon
My writing career began during my graduate studies at Loyola University’s Institute of Pastoral Studies in Chicago. I was introduced to the Hebrew writing tradition “midrash”. The translation of mi...view moreMy writing career began during my graduate studies at Loyola University’s Institute of Pastoral Studies in Chicago. I was introduced to the Hebrew writing tradition “midrash”. The translation of midrash varies from “to investigate”, “to study”, “searching out”, and “a story”. Essentially, a midrash is a story about a story. A midrash tells a story that gives more depth to the static and ageless transcripts of the broader Torah, Tripitaka, Qur’an, Sutras, Old and New Testaments, and Vedas. The midrash could also be a re-telling with contemporary characters, situations and settings. The first midrash I wrote was about the story of Jesus in the desert; alone, hungry, thirsty, and tired. He was about to begin a ministry that would change the world like nothing else in human history. My midrash attempted to answer the question; Why would he choose to go to a desert, a place of suffering and death to prepare? As a young graduate student living on a vibrant, dynamic urban campus his choice mystified me.
The midrash you are about to read is the re-telling of our daughter’s adoption story. In the early morning hours of September 18, 2003 she was left on a bridge in Shaoyang City in Hunan Province, China. She was naked except for the blue blanket that covered her. She was less than a day old. The unanswered questions are infinite. Who left her? Did anyone see? Did her mother give birth nearby? Was she the first child of her birth parents? Why? What could possibly lead a mother to abandon her child? Who was involved in the decision or the leaving, itself?
For my husband and I, there was only one question to answer – what would we tell our daughter?
What we do know is that she was left to be found. The bridge is in a city with a population of 7 million. Beginning early in the morning the bridge is crowded with pedestrians. There is a school nearby. One story of the abandoned babies in China is that once the baby is left (on a bridge, at a train station, in a park) the family member who left the child blends into the nearby scene make sure the child is “found”. Another story is that often the family member leaving the child is the one to “discover” the child and ensure the child’s delivery to the police station or hospital.
From a western perspective there are few answers that are satisfactory. Buddhism teaches “Right View” which is to see and to understand things as they really are. To do this requires we transcend our judgment and consider the possibility that the birth parents leave their children out of profound love.
The midrash you are about to read comes from our knowing that our daughter was our daughter long before we saw her for the first time. We know all things happen for a purpose. We know (and every physicist on earth knows) light is always stronger than dark. And our strongest knowing is that our first and greatest freedom is our freedom to choose – and this choosing begins before anything becomes manifest.
My husband, our son, daughter, and I live in the Chicago area. We are deeply grateful for the many gifts we have been given. We strive, in our flawed human way, to transcend and respond with love and gratitude, for that is our Source, our Soul which binds us to each other eternally.view less