Day 17 - Tuesday, December 18
Elizabeth Blesses Mary
Scripture: Luke 1:39-45
In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.”

Poetry:
Scale
by Chelsea Wagenaar

     I am soft sift
     In an hourglass
                —Hopkins

Against the darkening winterplum sky,
a lone contrail whitens—loose thread, untufted
cotton. A perfect inverse of me:
                                           Lenten moon

of my belly taut, halved by a slurred gray line.
Linea nigra, the doctor says, my belly button’s
new ashen tail a ghostly likeness of the cut cord

that once bound me to my mother.
These days I am a solstice, a season begun
in your germinal dark. Measure me now

in months, in so many weeks, all the streams
of my body downrivering
into the estuary that is you.

That is you—

there, the tick of your limbs, a second hand,
a second hand, fingers whorled and filling
with bone, numbered one by one,

as are your days in that luminous book.
Nameless one, I know you in numbers.
Your parts, your gathering weeks, the 145

of your heart. The thrum of kicks
in an hour is as many as the sparrows
that flit in the bare snarl of vine and hedge,

as many as the houses that line our street,
my trips to the bathroom in the night.
I think, in those small, bleary hours,

of the hand that pens the book of our days,
turns the page. Nameless one, only once more
will you be numberless, when you begin again

at zero. Day you quicken toward, cold sear
of light, fugue of voices. You’ll be cut
like yarn from the skein, your skin unshined

of blood, your heels grasped and slapped.
Cry, numberless one—for now you are laid
upon the scale, the 0.0 you’ll shatter,

your life weighed against a feather,
                                    already counted up.

ELIZABETH BLESSES MARY

“Me too.” Two words that form the basis of friendship and fellowship.  For young children, the words are often spoken with glee:  “I love puppies!” “Me too!”  For adolescents and young adults seeking a peer group and for whom showing enthusiasm may no longer be considered “cool,” the words are sometimes spoken with studied indifference:  “I kind of like Classic Rock.” “Yeah, me too.”  For older adults, the words are frequently spoken with a sigh:  “My knee pains.” “Mine too.”  In all life stages, we seek out others who can validate our experiences and remind us that we are not alone.  No wonder that the “Me Too” movement to end sexual violence chose those words as their name.  And no wonder that Mary hurried to her cousin Elizabeth.

We can only imagine the conversation between the two women as they joyfully embraced:  “I’m unexpectedly and miraculously pregnant.” “Me too.” “People are looking at me askance.” “Me too.” “And, I am trusting God in this.” “Me too.”  Both women knew social disgrace.  Elizabeth from years of childlessness in a culture that devalued women who were barren or who did not give birth to sons; Mary as a young girl pregnant before marriage, wondering if she would be rejected by her fiancé and family.  And while, Mary and Elizabeth weren’t privy to the scientific information (including the numbers of Chelsea Wagenaar’s poem Scale) of what all needs to go right biologically for a child to be conceived and born healthy, they would have been aware of the vulnerability of new life through observing in their communities of what has been estimated to be as high as a 30% child mortality rate.  No doubt, neither woman took for granted the conception and the birth of a healthy baby. This heightened sense of the miracle of any birth, and of the special miracles of their own pregnancies combined with their faith in God’s goodness, made it possible for Elizabeth to wholeheartedly pray a prayer of blessing over the socially disgraced Mary.

In Brother Mickey McGrath’s painting, both Mary and Elizabeth are Black. While some Black Madonnas are the result of art forms that have turned black as the result of deterioration of lead-based pigments or the accumulation of smoke and grime, many were intentionally painted with physical features and skin pigmentation that matched their communities. These Black Madonnas remind us of the universal and trans-racial message of Christ’s birth: In love, God came to be with us in order to bring all people to Himself. Black Madonnas can help foster a sense of belonging, of “Me too.”

Imagine what our relationships with friends, family, and those we consider to be “the other” would look like if we had conversations like this:  “Christ humbled himself to come to earth as a baby for me.” “Me too.” “I now live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.” “Me too.” “Christ will come again for me.” “Me too.”

Prayer:
O Lord Jesus Christ, in whom all differences of class are done away, take from us all pride, envy, and prejudice.  Unite us one to another by a common zeal for your cause, and enable us by your grace to offer to you the manifold fruits of our service.
Amen
Brooke Foss Westcott (1806-1901)
Bishop of Durham, Biblical Scholar

Nancy Crawford, Psy.D.
Associate Professor of Psychology
Rosemead School of Psychology
Biola University