Sometimes I give up too soon. In watching Call the Midwife there is often a novel character introduced that I quickly disapprove of. Either it is an overbearing father, or a nun who sacrifices compassion for efficiency. I thunk into the bear trap of judging him or her as problematic, and doom them to disappear by the end of the episode. They aren't salvageable. No need to try. 

 

But that is not how the screenwriters intend it. By the tail end of the show the irascible person lifts their facade just enough to show their underbelly, and I am swept from irritation to understanding. 

 

"Her first baby died from exposure. Of course she has an edge."

 

"He has undiagnosed leukemia. No wonder he can't show up for his wife."

 

The series has cracked me open to the poverty rampant in East London in the 1950's, and the constraints that strip people of dignity. It grabs my heartstrings by inviting me to care for human beings who face choices I have never been within a hundred miles of. Harshness is harder to cling to in the presence of empathy. 

 

It occurs to me that God is on a first name basis with each of us. There is no window opaque enough to hide us from His gaze, and in that knowing, love becomes inevitable. 

 

 

"O Lord, You have searched me and known me.
You know my sitting down and my rising up;
You understand my thought afar off.
You comprehend my path and my lying down,
And are acquainted with all my ways.
For there is not a word on my tongue,