The Origins of a Lullaby

Singing with God when you're still learning the words

I’ve been drafting this essay for years, the idea first finding me when I still zipped my daughter up in her sleep sack and laid her down in her crib (with a collection of pacifiers) each night. Her bedtime rituals these days are more elaborate and prolonged; elite negotiating skills are required. But my son is still small enough to zip into a sleep sack, sing him a song, and lay him in his crib.

He’s at the age where his language skills are exploding – he “talks” nonstop, though only we really understand him. He’ll repeat himself until you repeat back to him both what he’s literally saying and attempting to say:

Anders: bawa!

Me: ….

Anders: BAWA!

Me: ….ba…wa…?

Anders: BAWA!!

Me: ... Paw….Patrol??

Anders: YEA!!!! BAWA!!!!!!

So goes our days.

His grasp on language is immense but his ability to communicate verbally is still very much developing. Boy is he cute though. I love being the one he turns to when no one else understands him because he trusts I’ll stick with him until his meaning is clear. I love speaking a transitory and fleeting language only a handful of people in the world know, and of which I am the leading expert.

This is an essay about language and love, the songs my children and I sing together each night. It’s an essay about a duet between creator and created. But to tell it to you in its fullness, I need to tell you what happened three years ago.

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When my daughter was 18 months old, I boarded a plane, by myself, and flew halfway around the world. Then I took a taxi, a train, a boat, a bus, and another boat to a tiny remote island in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland – the Isle of Iona. Pre-kids me would have relished the opportunity to attend this weeklong retreat with a dear friend in such a sacred place. But Mother me was hesitant. I had never been so far away from my baby. I had never been away from my baby for so long. I felt so viscerally exposed, as if my skin had been flayed. I told anyone who even looked at me that I was traveling for the first time without my baby – an urgent confession, a desperate plea for understanding and sympathy. My crazed look was mostly met with perfunctory nods.

The retreat I attended was led by teacher and author John Philip Newell and his wife Alison and was centered around Celtic Christianity. John Philip and Alison are love and light personified. They are deep wells of wisdom, exuding generosity and gentleness. This retreat on this holy island felt like crawling into the lap of God and being sung to sleep for a week.

It was heavenly.

And I was an absolute mess.

The arrival of my daughter obliterated my sense of self. The pandemic was still raging. Two years earlier we’d left New York City to live in the woods of the Pacific Northwest but I still didn’t feel at home. I’d just paid a company $70,000 to rebuild my company’s website and it was a complete disaster. I wasn’t sleeping, wasn’t eating, and could not for the life of me figure out how to be ME – Caroline, wife, mother, business owner, friend, daughter, internet person, etc etc. I felt estranged from myself and from God.

When we finally arrived on Iona, I made my way to the Abbey, collapsed on the cold stone floor and wept.

Language failed me; all I had were tears.

On the final morning of the retreat, John Philip and Alison invited each of us forward to receive an anointing and blessing. The words they offered was drawn from an ancient Gaelic blessing that had been compiled and put to music in the 1970s:

Deep peace of the running wave to you

Deep peace of the flowing air to you

Deep peace of the quiet earth to you

Deep peace of the shining stars to you

Deep peace of the gentle night to you

Moon and stars pour their healing light on you

Deep peace of Christ, of Christ

Of Christ, the light of the world to you

Deep peace of Christ to you.

I watched my fellow retreatants walk up one-by-one to receive a version of this blessing while I remained glued to my seat, tears streaming down my face. Finally, when there was no one left, I shuffled to the front, shoulders heaving from tears that came from some subterranean place within, a place language still could not penetrate.

John Philip and Alison made the shape of the cross on my forehead, looked me in the eyes, and tenderly said:

Caroline,

Deep peace of the running wave to you

Deep peace of the flowing air to you

Deep peace of the quiet earth to you

Deep peace of the shining stars to you

Deep peace of the gentle night to you

Deep peace of Christ to you

In a season where I felt I had nothing to offer God but my groanings, questions, and failures, a prolonged season where I felt like formless goo, this blessing was a reminder of the enduring sturdiness of God’s presence and peace.

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This blessing imprinted itself on me and when Anders was born 18 months later, I had it printed and hung over his crib. When he was nine months old he went ten days without pooping and after a night of vomiting, I drove his limp and lethargic body to the emergency room. While we waited to be seen, the words of this Gaelic blessing returned to me and I started humming my own melody, a prayer for help sung in the last place any parent wants to be.

Thankfully, no major issues. Just normal baby constipation 😑

I felt sturdier than I had two years earlier in Iona. Sure, I was in the throes of my second matrescence but I felt more sure of God’s deep peace abiding with me amidst the gooeyness of daily life. As I sang this blessing over my son, I sensed the faithfulness of God to bridge the gap between us and draw close even if I didn’t have all the words. My voice was shaky, off key, but I knew I was singing a duet and not a solo.

After that day in the emergency room, I started singing this blessing over each of my children each night. As I tuck my daughter in she asks me to sing “Deepeas.” My son is still learning to talk (see BAWA! above), but he knows this song too and sings along in his own way.

Here is the lede I have deeply buried!

LISTEN TO MY PERFECT SON SING OUR LULLABY WITH ME AT BEDTIME

The room is dark, the soft hum of his white noise machine drowns out his sister’s yelling. I’ve zipped him in his sleep sack and wrapped him in my arms as we sway and sing Deep Peace together. He’s nuzzling his head into mine and playing with my hair, giggling at the joy of being so close.

The bliss of the connection we share in this moment eclipses everything else.

I have died and gone to heaven.

Or rather, I am fully alive and heaven is here.

I don’t have to stretch my imagination far to experience God holding me and singing heaven’s Deep Peace over me. I am still learning the words of heaven and so my attempt at a duet sounds more like fumbling through different sounds, trying to match my timing with the sound of my Creator.

God doesn’t care that I don’t know the words or the tune, that I’m not hitting every note perfectly. He doesn’t mind that I’m distracted or if I interrupt him. All of my not-enoughness is eclipsed by the bliss of being held by the God, the God who rejoices over me with gladness and singing, the God who quiets me with love.

The Lord your God in your midst, The Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing.

Zephaniah 3:17

This proclamation in Zephaniah is a celebration of the reunion between God and his people. They are no longer estranged from him but he draws them near.

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May you know, in the midst of your own estrangement from yourself, God, or others, the insatiable longing of God to swoop you up and sing over you with gladness.

You don’t have to know the words, you just have to be held.

*Friends, we had three spots on our Greece Retreat just open up. If you’re a reader of my Substack you are the EXACT PERSON I WANT TO COME! Seriously. This will be my fifth retreat at this heaven-on-earth spot and our theme for the week is being mothered by God alongside one another. It’s going to be so special and I’d LOVE for you to be there. Please message me if you’re interested or have any questions! All the details are here.