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 At
Christmas I think of Mary, the mother of Christ, and her
uncomfortable journey on the back of a donkey while heavily
pregnant, having been banished in disgrace. Without adequate
funds, Mary was forced to travel on the cheapest form of
transport available, seeking a safe place for the delivery
of a babe whose existence may have been unplanned although
clearly not unwanted.
Some
aspects of the story regarding the conception of baby Jesus
are a bit far fetched, I agree. The virgin impregnation,
angels singing, heavenly lights - it does sound more like
a hallucinogenic, strobe flashback from an eighties disco,
but if Joseph - a pretty decent chap from all accounts,
who spent years teaching his step-son the carpentry trade
- was willing to go along with such a fabulous charade,
then who are we to judge Mary’s reasons for the obvious
deception?. Fertility control has always been fraught with
difficulty and Mary had limited choices available to her,
regarding this unplanned pregnancy. Perhaps she and Joseph
had inadvertently eaten suspect mushrooms found by the side
of the road during their long and arduous journey, seeking
a place where Mary would be tolerated while she gave birth
to her illegitimate son. Suffice it to say that had there
been an alternative, acceptable explanation for her fall
from grace, Mary would have said so. She was in-between
a rock and a hard place. She wanted to keep her child. If
she practiced a whopping deception to achieve that, who
can blame her?.
Plenty
of women lie about paternity. Like Mary, many consider it
safer to perpetuate the idea that they do not know the identify
of their child’s father. Like Mary, some offer the
explanation it was someone they met only briefly, or don’t
remember at all. They make up a story to protect themselves
from adoption social workers, masquerading as wise women
or men. Unable to find good people willing to assist her
during labor, Mary was turned away from several respectable
establishments by superficial individuals too mean minded
to offer her floor space on which to give birth. That sounds
familiar. The world hasn’t changed much in 2000 years.
There’s
a downside to this Christian celebration. Mary has been
promoted as the ‘angel’ as compared to those of
us who could not match her cover story to claim a virgin
birth. The bible contains stories about good women and bad,
the angels and the whores, and many Christians choose to
translate this quaint old book and smugly apply it’s
edicts to modern life. Today’s unwed, pregnant women
are still banished to second rate establishments where they
are barely tolerated until such time as they give birth
after which they are sent on their way, although minus the
baby of course. Mary was lucky. She had transport. She kept
her wits about her. Because the fertility control of her
times was not what it is today there may have been no lines
of infertile people queuing up to snatch the baby Jesus.
Or perhaps there were and Mary’s strategy was invoke
fear of the almighty, turning their superstitions against
them. This is the son of God - get back, get back!. How
clever of her. You have to admire her sense of survival,
her evident self-esteem. What a woman. What a role model.
Any mother-to-be threatened with adoption and reading this,
should get on her donkey and ride. Or catch a cab, get a
bus, hitchhike. But get out of your institution or other
oppressive lodgings, and find a friendly stable. Don’t
talk to adoption social workers for they are your natural
enemies. Refuse their gifts of free advice, or paid birth
expenses - adoption is not free. Sign your name to nothing.
I
think of Mary as the ‘First Lady’ of first mothers.
The world stole Jesus away from her and made him public
property. The bible mentions how Mary used to turn up when
Jesus was public speaking, and hang around at the back of
the crowd, and she is recorded as being nearby at his death
and resurrection. While her popular son may have been adopted
by crowds of strangers, Mary still felt the need to have
contact with him, even if that only meant watching him from
a distance, gazing from afar. Women who lose children to
adoption and are then brutally abandoned by a cruel, vindictive
society, describe how they watch for their lost children
on any street, anywhere. They stand outside schools and
search children’s faces, looking for their own. And
when they are reunited, it is like a rebirthing, more painful
the second time around. First mothers experience their own
resurrection when they meet their lost child, for their
feelings have been telling them that their child is dead.
About
20 years ago a woman knocked on my door, recruiting for a
new movement called ‘The Legion of Mary’. She explained
how many Catholics believed Mary had being pushed into the
background and was being excluded from the story of Christ.
Mary was to be reinstated in her rightful place. I was struck
by the similarity between a first mother and the mother of
Christ. Both were being shoved out of the picture so that
others could claim her child themselves without having to
acknowledge her existence. To the woman’s delight I joined
the legion of Mary, or tried to. The first - and only - meeting
of the Legion I attended was presided over by a priest who
established I was not a Catholic, not even a lapsed one that
he would have accepted with gratitude. Only three people had
turned out for Mary that night but he explained that the meeting
could not start with a non-Catholic present. Afterwards I
thought about religious intolerance and poor Mary and her
ejection from her rightful role in the life of her famous
son, as well as the inability of her own organization to rustle
up enough troops to invoke her reinstatement. Just like first
mothers, left out in the cold, ignored by their organization,
the so-called feminist groups you might fully expect to fiercely
support the right of all women to raise their children themselves.
It’s a poor show.
Mary’s
son was a multi-talented, gifted boy who grew into an altruistic
man who tried to teach people the importance of thinking
deeply about human issues, in a vain attempt to stop them
from running about being judgmental and recklessly moralistic,
and carrying out crude, anti-social acts such as stoning
women for their sexuality. Jesus really liked women as evidenced
by stuff he did in public, honoring non-virgins and whatnot,
setting an example. Sorry to be vague on the details - I
seem to have mislaid my Bible. But it is true that Jesus
had a healthy respect for women and a powerful, inherited
story-telling gene that he obviously got from his mother
along with her worthy values. Nature vs. nurture ? No conflict
there. He got the best of both.
There
is a Polish custom whereby families keep a seat at their
Christmas table for the absent Christ who may not be present
physically although his presence is felt. I would like to
propose extending this custom in honor of every woman who
has lost a child to adoption. Just like Mary, there is an
empty place in her heart that can only be healed by the
missing child come back to life. Let us honor our sisters
who have been brutally separated from their first born children
by barbaric, forced adoption - that modern, crude equivalent
to stoning.
My
Christmas wish for first mothers is that your special son
or daughter will resurrect and restore themselves to you,
taking their rightful place at your table. I don’t believe
Jesus returned from the other world to teach us anything.
He’d already tried that. I think he came back because
he couldn’t stand to see his mother grieve, because she
was suffering, missing him so. I wish you a happy reunion
on this birth-day of Christ and his mom.
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