I wonder
What Mary thinks about the Nativity now
And all that led up to it
I wonder if she might want the Annunciation to have been a bit different
That as well as the wonder of being asked to ‘conceive and bear’ a son
That she would also have been invited to use her gifts
Of knowing and loving and trusting God,
And drawing others to that
That she was asked because of what she could bring to her Son’s mission
And not just because of her conveniently virginal womb,
And her betrothal to someone from the House of David
I wonder, in light of all the alabaster depictions of her since
Might she actually liked to have squared her shoulders and said
‘Well, no, I don’t think so’
Has she replayed that conversation with Gabriel in her head
Over the millennia since and wished she’d said something like:
‘Do you know what, why don’t you ask God to have a re-think
To refine this Divine wooing –
Which is what’s going on here if I am understanding things correctly
And I am being asked to bear God’s Son-
God might want to balance out the ‘male’ references - to David, Jacob and what a great Son and King this baby’s going to be?
God might want to talk to me
As a woman with my own gifts and passions
About the role I might play beyond this birth
To be involved, active in what my Son will do and bring to the world
About how I might give voice to that which I see and wonder deeply about
Trusting that it will touch others as it touched me
Not just passively pondering
And endlessly cooking, cleaning and clearing
After all
I would want to be able to look the women who come behind me in the eye
And say,
Well, when my big moment came,
I did my bit
To change this world that can so often seem to be so tilted towards men’
I wonder then
Might that be what actually happened
Might Mary have said something like this to Gabriel –
Asked for her gifts to be more fully acknowledged, recognised, and used
And it just never got written down?
And then I wonder
What might God be doing to try and rectify that?
What new Annunciations are being made today, and to whom?
© Patricia Higgins Photo by Chirag Nayak on Unsplash
Comentários