THOUGHTS OF ONE GIVEN AWAY AT BIRTH

I was born to an unmarried mother in an emergency nursing home in 1946. She, like others in her situation, had served in the Second World War and, after what must have been a brief affair with a soldier (or, possibly, having been raped – no father's name appears on my Birth Certificate), gave me up for adoption shortly afterwards. 

It appears she came from an ordinary family but there was little, if any, support for unmarried mothers in 1946 and she was persuaded to have me adopted.  I know she wanted to keep me but social conditions and family morality, combined with the economics of the pre-Welfare State, meant there was insufficient money to raise a child.  There was also the social stigma attached to being an unmarried mother and, therefore, she was sent to a place away from her home in order to give birth. Whilst I have letters showing she had a struggle to give me up, she did not talk about my birth which remained hidden from common knowledge, and although she married soon afterwards my very existence was never spoken of.  

At a time when many are reporting historical abuse towards unmarried mothers I count myself fortunate.  Until the advent of orphanages, usually run by Religious Orders as local authorities didn’t have to pay salaries to Sisters, babies born ‘out of wedlock’ or born to women with a large number of children, might have been ‘disposed’ of because the mothers could not afford to keep them.  Some would have been given away (and Charles Dickens writes of the conditions many faced in David Copperfield) but others would be allowed to die or be killed.

It’s easy, simplistic, and dangerous to judge a previous era by the standards of our own. Two years after I was born the Children Act 1948 set out new support measures for children across the UK. Until then, local authorities had no duty to provide care for any child whose parents were unable to do so - that was the responsibility of others.  The notion that children had ‘rights’ is fairly recent; it was not until 1990 that the UK signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), which sets out the rights of every child ‘to survive, grow, participate and fulfil their potential’.

Married women, of course, shared the lot of children in that it is only recently they were regarded as not being the property of their husbands.  Unmarried mothers fared even worse – ‘fallen’ women who had no place in decent society.  Much of the blame for this is traceable to the ancient notion that women needed controlling by men, an understanding that is still common in many places.  The fear behind this is that, without domination, women were a threat because they were the givers and takers of life; every religion has added a gloss to this by declaring, in one way or another, that woman can be either ‘saints or sinners.’

I am deeply and forever grateful to my adoptive parents for the wonderful upbringing I received, and I also recognise the pain that my birth mother must have experienced.  But we must not judge the mores of previous generations in the simplistic way that many in the media are now doing - and encouraging others to do the same.  It’s easy to point a finger, but we should be slow to judge, ready to listen and explore - and only then discern the right response.

‘PHILOMENA’ – HISTORY IN PERSPECTIVE?

Publicity around Stephen Frears's new film ‘Philomena’, starring Dame Judi Dench and Steve Coogan, has touched me deeply. The film tells the story of Philomena Lee who, according to the BBC website, as a young unmarried woman in Ireland was forced by nuns to sign away her rights to her son. The film follows her struggle to find him, decades later.

I am not Irish or Roman Catholic but I was given up for adoption 1947 when I was six months old.  I was gently made aware of that fact by my adoptive parents when I was eight but, at that age, such information meant little to me.  I was happy and content and simply felt they were my parents.  However in my early thirties I felt a growing need to discover my roots and very quietly began to try and find out about my mother.  Consequent to the passing of the Adoption Act 1976 I had been able to discover her name but quickly found that I had no right to contact her, and so let the matter rest.  Until then the emphasis had been to protect the rights of the adoptive parents:  ‘Child adoption had no legal status in Britain … until 1926, when the first Act was passed which regulated this in England and Wales. Until then, child adoption was an informal and generally secretive procedure which gave the adoptive parents no rights whatsoever: a biological parent could (and in some cases, did) appear at any time and demand custody of a child they had neither seen nor contributed to the care of for years at a time.’ (A Child for Keeps: the History of Adoption in England, 1918-45) 

Unlike some others I was happy with my adopted parents and did not want to upset them by giving the impression of wanting another family.  So it was not until some time had elapsed after my father died in 1989 that I felt able to take steps that might lead to the discovery of my birth parents and, in particular, my birth-mother.  In 2001 I began the search again and with the help of  NORCAP (National Organisation for Counselling Adoptees and Parents) I was indirectly able to contact the family of my birth-mother only to discover that she had died in 1995 leaving a son and daughter – my half-siblings.  As she had never mentioned my existence they felt it would dishonour her memory by establishing any relationship with me.

In one comment on the film Coogan says that "it's not our intention to hammer the Catholic church of 50 years ago, times were different. But two wrongs took place here - one that Philomena was forced to give up her child, and secondly that they refused to reunite the pair. I hope that though we criticise the institution, we dignify people of faith."   My reason for writing this is that I fear many people will simply criticise the Church without further reflection on the wider context.  It is easy to point a finger at the agencies of the State (or Church) and ignore the way society viewed illegitimacy.  I was also an illegitimate child and, whilst I was not forcibly taken from my birth-mother, will never fully know the reasons why she placed me for adoption.  In one document it simply states that she ‘could not provide a home or adequate care for the child.’  But it is clear from the records that my birth had to be kept as secret as possible: to have a child out of wedlock at that time was a grave matter but, having read letters from her to my adopted parents, it is clear that she did not want to have to part from me. 

I doubt I shall see the film as it will stir feelings that are still painful but I hope that those who do, or who become aware of practices concerning adoption that are now almost universally felt to be repugnant, will remember that the reason for these lies as much in the social attitudes of the time as it does with the practices of those who, no doubt, believed they were doing ‘the right thing.'  Society was as much responsible for what happened as the agencies of the State - and that is as true today as it was in the past.  

CHRISTMAS 1 - HOLY FAMILY SUNDAY

28th December, 2008
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'But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son
… so that we might receive adoption as children' (Gal.4: 4,5)

INTRODUCTION
When I was about eight years old my father told me that I had been adopted. It meant little to me then, after all, he was my dad and mum was - well, mum. I just knew there was something different. Not good or bad, just different. As the years went by I hardly thought about the matter but, when I was in my early 30's, I began to realise being adopted did make a difference. Who were my parents? Where had I come from? Why was I adopted? That began a long process of discovery: in those days children were not allowed to know anything about their birth parents and it took a long time, and a great deal of soul-searching, to discover the identity of my birth-family. However, I have never doubted that my 'real' family was the one which had adopted me and to whom I owed, if not my birth then my life.

ADOPTION AS THE CHILDREN OF GOD
Today we observe as the Feast of the Holy Family. On the face of it quite a small family: just Mary, Joseph and Jesus. The original nuclear family, I guess! But the important message that comes from our readings is that it isn't as small as it seems, for we are all included in this family! God has chosen us, humanity, to share life with Him. That's one of the great messages of Christmas.

In my early days as a Franciscan, when I was coming to terms what it meant to have been adopted I recall my Novice Guardian at that time, Br. Damian, saying to me, "Just remember, John, you didn't just happen - you were chosen!" and I have always remembered and treasured that insight. And that is what St. Paul, in his 'Letter to the Galatians' is saying about our relationship with God - we have been chosen by Him. Just imagine that - you have been chosen by God to be his child!

Now that might not be startling news to some of us, but it's been pointed out that this was to the people who heard the message of God's incarnation in Jesus. Up to that point (and in many religions today) God was remote, all powerful, not to be equated with earthly things. The very idea that God would chose to enter our humanity is impossible, shocking and repugnant.

But that is what we believe and what we proclaim: 'But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman … so that we might receive adoption as children.' (Gal. 4:4) And he came as a weak, helpless, vulnerable baby. Yes, our gospel is that God knows what it's like to be just that - weak, helpless and vulnerable. It's at such times in our lives when God is closest to us so that we might be drawn into His life.

I have always loved one of the Collects used during Christmastide that sums up the purpose of God's adoption of us:
Almighty God,
who wonderfully created us in your own image
and yet more wonderfully restored us
through your Son Jesus Christ:
grant that, as he came to share in our humanity,
so we may share the life of his divinity.

It's almost as if, in coming down into our midst in the Incarnation God has swept us up into his divinity! He has come to us in the weakness of an infant whose arms are open to embrace us, if we let him.

THE COST OF ADOPTION
Adoption is, of course, a costly business. I can only imagine what my parents went through as they took me into their life, knowing so little about where I came from and wondering how I would grow up. St. Paul makes the point that God sent his Son to redeem us - to buy us back and restore us to what we should be. That is the purpose of God's adoption of us, but we have our part to play. We need to work with Him so that we might be remade in His image and share the life of His divinity. And whilst not all adoptions 'work', this Divine Parent will never give up opening His life to us that we might share in that.

THE TRANSFORMING POWER OF ADOPTION
St. Paul writes of the way God has sent his Spirit into our hearts crying "Abba! Father!" God pours his Spirit into our hearts to give us the experience of being embraced into the family. When my father explained to me that I had been adopted it wasn't that which assured me I belonged to them, but the way in which I knew I had been, and continued to be, loved by them. They had given me a share in their 'spirit', just as God gives us a share in His that we might call Him Daddy - Abba. This is the transforming power of adoption: the one who didn't 'belong' knows that they do belong. We are part of the family.

SPIRITUAL HEIRS
So we belong to God who gives us a share in his life. We are 'heirs of God, and fellow heirs with Christ', as Paul writes in another of his Letters (Roms. 8:17).

Adoption, of course, means that we share fully in the life of the family - we share in the good times, and the bad. The adopted child isn't spared the suffering that a family might go through and as 'fellow heirs with Christ' we share in his sufferings as we also share in His glory. It wasn't long after Jesus' Presentation in the Temple and Circumcision that the Holy Family were caught up in the reality of life for so many in our world - fleeing from their homes as refugees. Thankfully such events hardly touch us in Romford. The plight of families in Sudan, Zimbabwe and a host of other countries - not to mention present-day Palestine - are a world away for most of us. We read about it in the papers or watch events on the TV. But we need to remember that Christianity is rooted in the glory and suffering of human experience.

This is the reality of God coming among us and sharing his life with us as he draws us into His. Pleasure and suffering are there from the start: God isn't aloof from human experience rather God has become part of the process. Neither God nor we can avoid pain if we are to come to that wholeness of life that is able to hold all things together. Yet, still, people find it hard to accept the concept of a God who enters suffering, not least as a child. It is easier to deal with a God who is, somehow, separate from the hardships of life, whose task is to offer respite and rescue from those hardships, rather than a God who - from the start - cannot but be involved with the 'dark' side of life. Yet this is the God in whom we believe and whom we celebrate this Christmass. The God who has chosen to come among us in our poverty in order to raise us to his divinity by sharing in the depths of human experience and adopting us into His life.

All this is beautifully summed up in those words:
as (Christ) came to share in our humanity
so we may share the life of his divinity …

This is the heart of our Faith - that God entered fully into human life in order that we might enter fully into divine life. Here is the meaning of Christmas, of the Incarnation. As Christians, that is what we need to meditate upon: a God who shares in human life that we might be drawn into divine life.

CONCLUSION
I was very fortunate to be adopted by loving parents, a gift for which I am eternally grateful. As an adopted child I did not inherit from them but they made me their heir and I was formed by them. I always remember a moment one Christmas some years ago when I had to organise activities for guests at Hilfield Friary my father saying to someone, "He's so much like his mother"! We can inherit through nurture as well as nature!!

To be adopted by God is the glory of the Incarnation. We belong to Him as He belongs to us because we are made in God's image and likeness. May this coming year help us grow more fully into that likeness as we realise ourselves as the sons and daughters of God.

Amen.