I’m adopted. I adopted my two children. There – all my cards on the table. Now let me share the quickest way to undermine that sacrament which bookends my experience of family – say it’s not natural.
I’ve heard it more than once, but read it more often now that blogs abound and adoption talk moves like a spark through dry brush. Adoption is harder because it’s not natural, so be patient through the process – that’s what they say. It always surprises me they put their names on the post, don’t cover up with a bandit’s bandana or whisper it in a dark corner of an abandoned house. The most sacred element of my life is so easily diminished with so few words – not natural.
If the holy scrolls in a synagogue were stolen, the cross in a church sanctuary pulled from the wall and defaced or the minarets of a mosque tagged, we’d all cry desecration! Local reporters would gather, scribble in tiny pocket-sized pads and rally the community to action. But call adoption unnatural or second best and all you get are sympathetic nods. My holy of holies gutted and no one’s outraged, no one notices, people even dare to applaud.
I know they mean well. But the message good but not natural doesn’t ring true to those who drink from the chalice daily, imbibing the family grace with each swill. We don’t feel unnatural in our God-ordained family. Most of us are naked and unashamed in our homes, crawling under the covers with our mothers and wrestling barefoot with our siblings and laughing with our super-hero fathers. We’re at home where we belong, naturally.
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