Mary, Full of Grace
I have to say that I really enjoy the newborn stage of life - now I've never experienced a baby with cholic (fingers crossed), so I know that there are many parents out there who would disagree with me. I love the newborn stage because it forces me to slow down. My life becomes segmented into three hour intervals, defined by simple, yet life-giving tasks. I can feel my heart softenning and re-warming as I contemplate what it means to be a parent.
During these times it's almost impossible to not think of Mary. I'm pretty sure that I'm not the only mother who thinks about this, especially while witnessing the first tender weeks of life. The mystery of the incarnation seems so close. The birth of a promised child seems to be a repeating theme in the Bible. The child is expected, yet totally unexpected. The child is promised, but there is always pain surrounding his arrival. And Mary, an unwed teenage mother, becomes a vessel for God incarnate. God who is so apart from us, God that we long to touch and hear - becomes completely physical and intimate to the world. "... For the grace of God to be not merely understood or even felt, but actually touched, in the common stuff of life, including bread, wine, water, and oil. For [Mary] was the human vessel whose womb and breasts and arms and tear ducts were the necessary conduits through which the Son of God became the Son of Man." (Gregory Wolfe)
As I look on different depictions of Mary, from gaudy plastic figures decorated with silk flowers to masterpieces of Western art, there is something about how she holds the infant Christ. She is all at once protecting him but also holding him out to the world that would crucify him - holding him out for all to touch. I hope that my faith will not become too cerebral to marvel at the mystery of the incarnation - that God became a helpless baby who could be held and touched.
Labels: aesthetics, faith, musings, women
