THE MIDWIVES

Salwa is a short woman, podgy and friendly as an angel. She is a religious and is 63 years old. She came for the Near East for a study period in Montreal. The first cold wave of November already makes her suffer. To face that weather, she is always wrapping up herself in her nun clothing. 

                                                                 

Dressed in black from head to toe, she looks like a kind of Taliban lady in a Catholic burka. She says that she is a nurse and a midwife. During her 40 years of work in Jordan and in Lebanon, she took care of 15,000 deliveries. Bending towards my ear, she confides:

-      I baptized 600 dying Muslim babies, without the knowledge of the mother, of course. Did I do well? My bishop told me yes.   

Smiling, I answered her that was pirating. She smiled in turn, but not without a touch of surprise in her mischievous eyes.  

I explain to her that when we believed that the children dead without baptism were stored away in a not very funny place called limbo, pious people pulled out all the stops in order to baptize them before they would die. But since we have discovered that such a place did not exist, we do not see any more why we would still baptize those tots. We have now understood that, baptized or not, Muslims or Christians, the Good Lord welcomes everybody in his home, and even the wicked people.

-      Even the wicked people? my surprised nice pirate asks.

-      Of course!

-      Then, what’s the use of doing good?

-      It serves to simply do good. And it makes one happy like you are yourself. Yes, you are glowing with happiness.

In fact, Salwa is happy for what she has lived. She does not regret in any way of having baptized 600 Muslim children who were dying in her arms. For her, that was the best to do. As for what they became after leaving our world, very clever would be the one who could answer that question. Yet, we can guess that outside our world, there is surely not a God and a paradise for the Christians and another God and another paradise for the Muslims. In God everything is one, and everything is beautiful and good. 

Salwa is not very much surprised, but she has to reflect about it. She usually follows the path which is recommended by her heart.

This Salwa is not only a midwife; she is also a wise lady. She reminds me of  Shiphra and Pua, those two midwives whom Pharaoh had ordered to kill at birth all the male children of the Hebrews. Those women also listened to their heart. They decided to disregard the order of the king and saved the life of the boys of their people (Ex 1: 15-21). One of those was Moses, that giant who set going the three great epics of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Without those midwives, the pharaohs would have surely won once again and history would have lost a huge part of its humanity.

Salwa, Shiphra and Pua remind me of another midwife, Romelia, who brougth her care to the delivery to most all the people who nowadays reside in the village of Maimará and its surroundings, in the Northwest of Argentina. She was the second mother to all a small people who still devote to her a boundless affection. 

                                                                   

Today, Romelia has become a frail and good-looking great-grandmother of more than 90 years old. A nasty accident nearly crushed her leg, but she still walks by leaning on two of her grandchildren, or by helping herself with two walking-sticks. She welcomes and listens to everyone, being attentive to each one.

I say to myself that those four ladies could be the image of the Church of Jesus:

            Like Salwa, the Church would be a deliverer of life who would only obey to her heart;

Like Shiphra and Pua, she would outsmart all the pharaohs who threaten to make humans less human;

Finally, like Romelia, she would only be pure tenderness for those she gives birth.

                                                                                                            Eloy Roy

Translated from the French by Jacques Bourdages