I recently posted this comment as my facebook status:
Katie wishes she could find a realistic picture of the Nativity - what's all this with Mary being composed? She just had a baby!
Someone responded with this article about Mary maintaining her virginity through the birth of the Christ. I respected what was said in the article on behalf of the Church, and if this were the Church's official position, then I would obey. But it's far from official. And I have a beef with the idea that the baby Jesus simply slid out of the Virgin Mother, or, even more appalling, that He just appeared.
Now I love Mary. And the part of her I am most drawn to is her physical motherhood. She has been a great source of inspiration for women as mothers these 2000 years. There's something inside me that feels my respect for her (or perhaps more rightly, my connection to her) would lessen if I had to believe she did not feel anything in labor. Many are quick to point out that the pains of labor are a direct result of the Fall (see Genesis 2), and Mary, being conceived without original sin, would not have felt the consequences of the Fall. Let me assure you, I am ALL ABOUT the Immaculate Conception. Couldn't be a bigger fan. But what Genesis really says is that the pangs of labor will be INTENSIFIED as a result of the Fall, which means God created labor with a certain amount of intensity and pain.
I brought this up with my friend who works as a doula, and has three children of her own. She related to me that the reason birth can be so difficult is almost solely because of fear. When a woman is scared (of unfamiliar surroundings, of her own inadequacy as a mother), her abdomen muscles tighten and it's far more painful to push the baby out. It was when my friend surrendered and completely trusted God in the birthing process that it suddenly became easier. Not painless, but easier.
I think that holiness is attained through choosing the will of God during suffering, rather than not suffering at all. Mary SUFFERED. At the cross, her heart was pierced with a sword as she held the body of her son. So why would God give her a free pass on labor when He would later cause her to feel the deepest grief? I believe that Mary felt pain during labor, but CHOSE to trust God through the pain. She had no fear. She embraced the pains of childbirth because she knew it to be the will of God. It was notably easier for her to do so because she was free of original sin, and therefore free from the doubts and fears that we all face (thanks to another friend for pointing this out). If you picture original sin as a veil we all wear that keeps us from seeing the will of God clearly, then Mary had no such veil but looked on God with love at all times.
So ok, I think it's safe to say that Mary had an easier time in childbirth than any other woman. Yet I think I will always be comforted by believing that Mary went through the same life-changing experience that all mothers do; that she held her naked baby seconds after He came out of her womb, all covered in blood and fluids and oh so purple, and loved Him more than any mother has loved her child.
Isn't Advent just a wonderful season?
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
The Depth of Our Fall, and the Weight of it All
Note: I apologize to those who read the first draft of this. I concluded that it was terribly uninsightful, and rewrote the second half to better reflect what was the dominant lesson I drew from this experience.
The story of my Halloween is long and complicated. The evening was spent enjoying the party we (my roommates and myself) hosted at our condo, then a bit of meandering around State Street without actually paying to get into Freakfest. However, when I returned home thinking only of my bed's warm blankets and pillows that smell like me, I found people still there. When I left 30 minutes prior, everyone at the party had left, either for home or the bar near our house. I locked the front door. These people, upon finding the door locked, logically went to our BACK DOOR. Sketchy. (Though to clarify, they had been at the party earlier that evening.) I wasn't about to go to bed while there were people I didn't know in my house, so I stayed up, cleaned up, and read blogs until 3:30am, when the others returned from the bar. By that time, I felt so... heavy with the sin of this fallen world, listening to many drunk and sober people talk about how smashed they were, how much they hated so-and-so, or how they had failed to score a one-night stand at their last party. You get the idea. After having 4 hours of this kind of input, I curled up in bed and just cried, because I felt "the depth of our fall and the weight of it all", as David Crowder says.
On Sunday morning, I listened to an illuminating sermon by Rob Bell at Mars Hill Bible Church (check out the link on my sidebar) about the beatitude, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they shall be filled." His thesis was just what I needed to hear after feeling our separation from God so distinctly the night before: God is on the side of those who feel the difference between the way things are and the way they should be, and long with every fiber of their being for a change. Essentially, God is with us in the struggle and the tension of knowing that things are not as they should be, that we were not made for this. We were made for so much more, we were made for communion with our Creator!!! We were made to adore Him in Heaven, yet we go through our lives causing Him pain as disobedient children pain their parents. We make bad decisions because we often only consider what WE want rather than what HE wants for us (and always makes us infinitely happier). We get drunk, we use His name as a curse, we get involved in gangs, we fall in and out of sexual relationships. How much it must tear our Father apart to see us destroy ourselves and each other. I cry for my brothers and sisters, that they have turned away from God in order to do what they want to do. On the night of Halloween, I felt this pain as I have never felt it before, because, quite frankly, I am not usually in the company of those who have turned away from God in their actions. Seeing this other side of my generation (the side on which I grew up, btw) made me long for the Kingdom of Heaven to be established on earth. The young men and women my own age who seemed so unhappy with their life at 3am on Halloween were created by the same God who created John Paul the Great, Blessed Theresa of Calcutta, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinus, St. Therese of Lisieux - all the holy men and women whom we celebrated the following morning, All Saint's Day.
Because we were given a choice, there will always be people who turn away from God and His will in their lives. There will always be a separation between what we were created for, and what we are doing now. That doesn't mean I have to like it.
The story of my Halloween is long and complicated. The evening was spent enjoying the party we (my roommates and myself) hosted at our condo, then a bit of meandering around State Street without actually paying to get into Freakfest. However, when I returned home thinking only of my bed's warm blankets and pillows that smell like me, I found people still there. When I left 30 minutes prior, everyone at the party had left, either for home or the bar near our house. I locked the front door. These people, upon finding the door locked, logically went to our BACK DOOR. Sketchy. (Though to clarify, they had been at the party earlier that evening.) I wasn't about to go to bed while there were people I didn't know in my house, so I stayed up, cleaned up, and read blogs until 3:30am, when the others returned from the bar. By that time, I felt so... heavy with the sin of this fallen world, listening to many drunk and sober people talk about how smashed they were, how much they hated so-and-so, or how they had failed to score a one-night stand at their last party. You get the idea. After having 4 hours of this kind of input, I curled up in bed and just cried, because I felt "the depth of our fall and the weight of it all", as David Crowder says.
On Sunday morning, I listened to an illuminating sermon by Rob Bell at Mars Hill Bible Church (check out the link on my sidebar) about the beatitude, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they shall be filled." His thesis was just what I needed to hear after feeling our separation from God so distinctly the night before: God is on the side of those who feel the difference between the way things are and the way they should be, and long with every fiber of their being for a change. Essentially, God is with us in the struggle and the tension of knowing that things are not as they should be, that we were not made for this. We were made for so much more, we were made for communion with our Creator!!! We were made to adore Him in Heaven, yet we go through our lives causing Him pain as disobedient children pain their parents. We make bad decisions because we often only consider what WE want rather than what HE wants for us (and always makes us infinitely happier). We get drunk, we use His name as a curse, we get involved in gangs, we fall in and out of sexual relationships. How much it must tear our Father apart to see us destroy ourselves and each other. I cry for my brothers and sisters, that they have turned away from God in order to do what they want to do. On the night of Halloween, I felt this pain as I have never felt it before, because, quite frankly, I am not usually in the company of those who have turned away from God in their actions. Seeing this other side of my generation (the side on which I grew up, btw) made me long for the Kingdom of Heaven to be established on earth. The young men and women my own age who seemed so unhappy with their life at 3am on Halloween were created by the same God who created John Paul the Great, Blessed Theresa of Calcutta, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinus, St. Therese of Lisieux - all the holy men and women whom we celebrated the following morning, All Saint's Day.
Because we were given a choice, there will always be people who turn away from God and His will in their lives. There will always be a separation between what we were created for, and what we are doing now. That doesn't mean I have to like it.
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