Mary didn’t feature much in my evangelical upbringing. She was there, but a two dimensional figure who didn’t impact me. I knew nothing of the controversies that surrounded her in the larger world of the church, and down the centuries.
During my adult years my spiritual journey has led me to travel with Mary more and more. She has so much to teach me. Her Yes to God, changing her life forever and that of the world. Her life after that, as a mother, watching her son grow up, and pondering.. turning all these things over in her heart. As a mother standing at the foot of the cross, watching in agony, the way any mother feels their child’s pain almost more than they do. After the resurrection. I have mused in sermons about the possibility of that undocumented meeting. ‘Mother and Son reunion’, I can’t believe it didn’t happen. Almost certainly unwitnessed by anyone else. We will never know this side of Heaven, but prayerful meditative imagination is a powerful way of experiencing the Word.
I am in the habit of scribbling poems in my Christmas cards (although this has become a much greater challenge amidst the pressures of ordained ministry). I was delighted to discover that a much better poet than I, also started that way. U.A. Fanthorpe.( Look her up, she is well worth discovering.) I have blogged some of my poems (click on the titles for the links to those posts) I have collected some of the more recent ones, to put together in one post, as I prepare to write a sermon for Advent 4 – on Luke 1: 26-38 Gabriel’s visitation to Mary. Pulling together some of the facets of Mary’s life and particularly THAT moment, which have paralleled my own call to ordination, my experience as a former midwife, and my own musings about reputation and the painful process of letting go of even that.
I will post them in chronological order of Mary’s life, rather than the timing of writing them.
The following was written the first Christmas at Theological college, as I was struck ever deeper by how I could ‘bear the weight of this Light’ that God had asked me to carry in calling me to ordination.
Aftermath of Angels
Who are you and who am I
that you should choose me?
Who am I now
that I have chosen
to say yes?
How can I bear the weight
of this light,
carry the child of your heart;
hold He who is Love
within the limits of my own?
Face down, I lay my head
upon the earth
hide me under the shadow
of your wing.
As you form Him in me,
shape me within your hands.
Knit my soul
to the fabric of your being,
Cradle us both
In your enfolding
and bring us to birth
encircled by grace
Surrender. Trust. Saying Yes. My journey towards ordination has been one of struggle. I put up a gargantuan fight when God started to ask me to consider this possibility. (Moses had nothing on my protestations) Her Yes was instantaneous. I now fully embrace my calling, but it was not always so. This poem reflects this stage of my journey.
but suppose the answer had been NO?
and Heaven held its breath
as in that startled moment
a teenage lass
looked an angel in the face.
Cascades of questions
in tug of terror and of trust
as wide eyed in wonder
it dawned on her
the choice was hers
and hers alone.
yet the choice was not to choose
to surrender choice itself
taking the gift
God gives with life and breath,
to lay it down.
her Yes was all that she could give
took all she had
To hold the angel’s eye.
‘Let it be
to me as you have said’
and Heaven’s gate swung wide..
Mary’s Yes risked everything. Her engagement, her relationship with her family, her life. She could have been stoned for adultery. How do you begin to explain? How do you hold on to your self esteem and integrity, when you know the truth, but the world does not see it? I have had my own journey with having my reputation smeared and having to keep silent, knowing that God knew the truth, and that was in the end, all that matters. We waste so much precious energy holding onto our reputations when it can, like health or wealth or dear ones, be taken from you in a moment. Letting God guard it for you, is a much better way, that Mary modelled, and I am still in the learning.
Scandal.
slip of a brown skinned girl
almost a child herself,
with some story about angels ( as if!)
and so the offensive smell of scandal
clung like dust to Mary’s skin.
You were an outcast
from the start.
A wrinkled nose and upturned sneer
barely hid behind hard hands.
Your birth, no less, a squalid mess
a foetid outhouse slum
the scrapings of a nowhere town.
What father this , who watches on-
while child of his, flees in the dark
a refugee from hate?
A Father whose love outstripped
the twisting coils of evil’s curse
and let his Son grow on
into the scandal of a cross.
Written from my experiences as a midwife and a mother, the following tries to explore the wonder and miracle of any birth, and the mind bending miracle of this particular one. Further thoughts on this, and Mary’s life can be found in my post Bringing Love where Love is absent
Exhausted, yet wide awake,
my body spent, yet every nerve alive.
we one have become Two.
He who lately stirred in me, moved
more than limbs, whose spirit sang
with mine, filling my soul with wordless awe:
now like a lamb, lies in the straw.
God’s perfect lamb…that shepherds knelt to see.
my tiny lamb…so vulnerable
that I would hide him from the fears that lurk, and
what the future may require..
Who then is he, whose soft breath on my neck
nuzzles me close, and with his
fingers in mine, I wonder with a kiss
just who is holding who?
This one isn’t specifically about Mary, but follows the theme of wonder, and the things she carried in her heart, as he grew up.
Incarnation
With the first cry of birth
A gasp of foetid stable air,
The Mighty Godhead came to earth
Likes naked in a hovel bare.
Fragile and helpless, he-
Whose incandescence fused the stars.
The humble shepherds kneel to see
Eternity behind Life’s bars.
No throne, no royal crown
Ahead for this celestial king.
To wood and nails he is come down,
Earth’s toil and tears his lot would bring.
A crib, a child, a cross,
Heaven’s mysteries are revealed;
Our gain would mean the Father’s loss,
By his wounds, our world is healed.
Written the Christmas of my second year of Theological college, the following emerged from a deep journey of discovery into the mysteries of the Eucharist. During that exploration I accidentally stumbled upon the notion of the priesthood of Mary, theotokos, the Christ-Bearer, something that wiser folk than I have written much upon, but which was so obvious once I had seen it. More of this can be found in my eponymous blog post, Holy Gifts. Again I am echoing Mary’s life with my own calling as a priest.
Taken
Chosen
A life lifted from obscurity
Held in hands that hefted galaxies
Hallowed by an ask
To sustain
The Word
Blessed
Given grace
To bear the weight of favour
Daughter of Eve,
Giving God a thankful heart
By holding His, within
Her own
Broken
Lanced by sword
That pierced Father, Spirit, Son.
Blood of her blood
Poured out for those
That clamoured for
His death.
Given
Her whole life
Offered on the altar
Of surrender
A readiness to be God’s Yes
Shared out to hungry hands
To feed a world
With grace
The following poem was written one Christmas when God was asking me to Go. To leave all that I had known and loved, within the church family of which I had been a part for most of my adult life. To step out into the dark. At the time it felt like a deep tearing. Heartbreaking. Looking back, God’s grace transformed that heartbreak into so much blessing, learning and growth. Every time He calls me once again to step out, I remind myself that ‘He who calls you is faithful’ and that His nail pierced feet tread at my side.
Sent
God said GO and He went
from all knowing to unknown
from unbounded horizons
to the confines of a womb.
God said GO and she went
from innocent obscurity to scandal’s
harshest stare. God said GO
and she went- full bellied from all
she knew and loved, to weary road,
that knew no place of welcome or of rest.
God said GO and they went
awed by angels, hearts racing their feet
towards the promise of a child.
God said GO and they went
they knew not where, but the call was all
their hearts could hear, and drew them on
when way was hard, and path unclear.
Bringing the best they had
they came to follow and to kneel.
God said GO and they went
out in the dark in what they stood,
exiles of a jealous king.
God says GO and will you ask
‘How far?’ Or know the route you tread?
Listen for the Child’s cry
to wake your heart to go
but travel with your feet unshod
for the Way is holy ground.
This morning, I discovered a beautiful, fresh angle on Mary’s encounter with Gabriel, and I could not finish this post without including the poem and the link to the blog in which it can be found. Written by Jan Richardson on her blog The Advent Door.
What must it have been like for the archangel who witnessed Mary’s yes?
For a moment
I hesitated
on the threshold.
For the space
of a breath
I paused,
unwilling to disturb
her last ordinary moment,
knowing that the next step
would cleave her life:
that this day
would slice her story
in two,
dividing all the days before
from all the ones
to come.
The artists would later
depict the scene:
Mary dazzled
by the archangel,
her head bowed
in humble assent,
awed by the messenger
who condescended
to leave paradise
to bestow such an honor
upon a woman, and mortal.
Yet I tell you
it was I who was dazzled,
I who found myself agape
when I came upon her—
reading, at the loom, in the kitchen,
I cannot now recall;
only that the woman before me—
blessed and full of grace
long before I called her so—
shimmered with how completely
she inhabited herself,
inhabited the space around her,
inhabited the moment
that hung between us.
I wanted to save her
from what I had been sent
to say.
Yet when the time came,
when I had stammered
the invitation
(history would not record
the sweat on my brow,
the pounding of my heart;
would not note
that I said
Do not be afraid
to myself as much as
to her)
it was she
who saved me—
her first deliverance—
her Let it be
not just declaration
to the Divine
but a word of solace,
of soothing,
of benediction
for the angel
in the doorway
who would hesitate
one last time—
just for the space
of a breath
torn from his chest—
before wrenching himself away
from her radiant consent,
her beautiful and
awful yes.
– See more at: http://adventdoor.com/2014/12/19/advent-4-gabriel-and-mary/#sthash.iWh5qIBG.JyHMT2MA.dpuf
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