Niggle It, Just a Little Bit: A Funny Title for a Serious Post About Tolkien, Jesus, and Birthwork

While Tolkien was writing his masterpiece Lord of the Rings, he was afflicted with a serious case of writer's block. He woke one morning to find his neighbor had cut down half of his tree. What remained was a gnarly, tangled, dying mass that Tolkien thought was the perfect metaphor for his work. Lord of the Rings was his dying tree. It was half done and he was unable to produce. This was the foundation for his less known work Leaf By Niggle.

In Leaf, we meet Niggle, a struggling artist. His struggles stem from his overwhelming urge to create with such detail that he spends all of his time working on making the perfect leaf instead of focusing on the entire tree. He struggles in a society where art is not appreciated or valued. But Niggle also has a big heart which leads him to almost compulsively help others. This, coupled with the completion of the mundane tasks of his life, causes him to silently curse because he perceives it as a distraction that subtracts time away from what he feels is his true calling-his art.

By the end, we see Niggle on his final journey where he sees the actualization of his beautiful masterpiece, the tree. He experiences each leaf, the deep roots, and every single detail perfectly put into place. He cries out, thankful to be able to experience the tree and forest in all of its glory and wakes to the reality that it was in the mundane tasks and service to others where the purpose of his life hid all along. His calling was not in creating perfect art. Instead, it was in the enduring, lasting love and service to others regardless of the appreciation or recognition that it brought him.

I could write several posts about how this relates to my life. I am sure most people can identify with many of these themes. Most days, the finished masterpiece is my equivalent of all the laundry clean, folded, and put away. Or seeing my kids grow up to be and have everything I desire for them. Or possibly even seeing my Cheerio laden van sans crumbs. I could go on as these are just a few of the idols of my heart.

As a birth doula, this speaks to me as well. I have been struggling with a bit of my own “writer's block” lately when it comes to my role. For a lot of reasons. While I love birthwork, it is often demanding and can be taxing to the psyche. Doulas see things that are amazing and awe inspiring. We also see things that leave us frustrated, confused, or discouraged. Often, we are left to silently pick up the broken pieces of our experience and try to make sense of them. While we all have our own perceptions of what birth is, I think most would agree that it is never something that is mediocre.

Following a post of a discouraged doula this week, I asked the question: What do we do when we have stayed within our scope of practice, when mother/partner/doula have educated themselves and done everything “right,” and yet we witness something-especially something we perceive as preventable-go wrong? What do we do when we feel someone has acted unjustly? Or when they have made prejudicial decisions based on biases?

While attempting to hug it out with another doula, I wrote this:

I just don't know how much of this I want to take on right now. Fighting the good fight is something that I have always done since I was little. We were the only ones on the street with hand-made-by-a-five-year- old Martin Luther King decorations for his birthday. And I am sure I will come around because giving up is hardly an option and certainly not one I have ever been fond of. But for the love of Christ (truly) can we start digging into the roots of all this. They are tangled and dirty and deep, but we need to start somewhere instead of touting our armchair slactivism.

If I am honest, it stings a bit looking back on it now. Maybe it's a bit of piety and judgment mixed in with some truth. The answer I was looking for was not a simple solution. Go here. Do this. Read that. I realize the need for having support, finding someone to process things with, and understanding how my own experiences affect my perceptions. What I was really searching for applies not only to birth, but much of life. Something many of us feel regardless of our occupation or circumstance. What I was looking for was how to come to a place deep within myself to find and satisfy the unrelenting anguish when reality does not meet expectation.

The answer, in short, is to Niggle it. It is to know that there will always be unfinished business. The laundry will never be fully done, our kids will continue to be human, and there will always be one last Cheerio wedged in some obscure, dark crevice in the van. And while this is not to be confused with passively giving up, I find it freeing to know that I am not the answer to any of this. It is a bit arrogant of myself to have thought I ever might have been.

When applying the Niggle rule to birth, it can be equally as freeing. It is to know that I am a witness to one tiny portion of someone else's journey. I am one small leaf in their tree. That Jesus is the one who paints the masterpiece and that I will never truly see the completion of it on this side of life. That the discouraging distractions that separate me from where I FEEL I am being called are actually where I AM being called. That what looks like failure is where there is inspiration and what looks like pain will, ultimately, bring healing.