Rediscovering the spiritual roots of midwifery Rev Lucyann Ashdown - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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

• verwhelm 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 ¡