birth

In my current work I see a lot of babies born. It strikes me that the process of birth gives us a helpful insight into the being and becoming involved in living as a christian. The having it all and yet knowing it all is yet to be (see 'whispers' - jolly beggar lyrics). A full-term baby in utero has all the faculties of a newborn, all the capacities, but it is yet to have those faculties exercised fully, or those capacities realised. The process of being born is wonderful, exciting, exilarating, but it is also hazardous, painful and risky. It involves embracing a whole new, vastly different and superior existence, but also involves being separated from what was previously so important.
Paul of course points to this reality in romans 8, not in reference to individuals, but the whole creation (The way in which the promised land is realised?).
The genesis 3 narrative also focuses us on childbirth as a place at which the curses of sin are felt most acutely.
Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again."