elizabethlevett

Maybe it’s been the season. Lately she’s been appearing in my thoughts. Mary, Our Lady, the BVM – “the blessed mother,” my mom used to call her. Mary, more than any of the other facets of my Catholic childhood, survives as mystery and a wonder. My affection for the concept of Mary remains more or less unchanged even as my grown up mind processes so much negativity around the church. I have lapsed from much of the practice of the faith I was born into, raised with, steeped in. Even after catechism, a couple of years of Catholic school around seventh and eighth grade – when my mom had to help Sister Maura in my math class to help pay for tuition – after attendance at a Catholic high school in Atlanta for a year (a great place, old brick building downtown that isn’t there anymore, where I skipped out to go smoke pot, but that’s another story…) I even went to a Catholic university, a fact that made my parents inordinately proud and happy, though much of what they taught this wild beach girl majoring in Philosophy only caused me to question the whole thing that much more…Heck, I even taught first grade in a Catholic school in the Mission District. (First grade, safe, not much dogma there. God loves you. I can tell that to a child. No problem, no crisis.)

But these days I do think of her and, yes, at times I do still find myself saying her prayers. It helps me sleep. “Say the rosary, the angels will finish it for you,” my mother would say. I tell myself it’s okay for a grown up progressive to fall back on this ritual. Call it a recitation of mantras to the goddess. But I just haven’t found her as relatable as I’d like to, as I feel perhaps I should, could maybe, and I’m beginning to think I know why.

I do like to tell people about some of the books out there that explain how she fits in with the other cool goddesses. I’m happy when guests notice the fabulous statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe in my kitchen. She’s just there to my right at this moment as I look up from my coffee. Her hands are clasped in perpetual, solemn prayer. She is depicted standing on the snowy peak at Tepeyac, site of worship to Tonantzin, the ancient goddess of the local people. Her place is just next to my sideboard. She is a dark-skinned Mary, probably much closer to reality than as a blond. She is a heavy statue, about 30 inches high, painted by a good friend who has been gone so many years now. Her corona is still vivid, her cloak of stars still drapes in folds around her silent frame and a small Mestizo angel spreads his wings at her feet. I love her. My Mexican Mary. Still I can’t reach her.

I was thinking about her the other day. Her prayers had just brought the bus to my corner. (Yes, it works every time.) I was having breakfast out at the Seal Rock Inn with a pal after a long walk along the beach (ah, ocean, mother). Our waitress was Mexican (or Central American, hello ignorance, my old friend). We couldn’t help but remark how beautiful, kind, patient, smart, and competent she was. Like she could and would do anything for those in her charge. She could have been as young as thirty-five or as old as fifty. She has a husband and a house full of kids at home. I was compelled to tell her what a glorious smile she had. Glorious, joyful, relatable. That’s when I figured it all out. Right then over coffee and scrambled eggs.

It’s all in how we depict Mary in the church. I think we do her – and ourselves – a disastrous disservice. When we address Mary we say, “Oh Mary, conceived without sin,” or “Immaculate Mary,” or “Blessed Mary, ever virgin.” That’s what trips me up every time.

When I was growing up the Mary depictions we saw around us were all chaste and virginal looking. To me it’s all part of the same misconception. Artists have painted Mary at the moment the angel appeared to tell her the good news about her sudden and divinely induced pregnancy. More often than not she’s kneeling in prayer or reading. One artist even painted Our Lady in a lavishly appointed sitting room showing needlework with classmates. She is pale and looks weak enough to fall over in a strong wind. It’s as if Mary was an aristocrat living a very sheltered life. But what if she was baking bread when the angel showed up, or scrubbing something, or pruning her olive tree? I can see it.

It’s always been a problem for me, that immaculate, ever-virgin idea. See, the story goes that Mary’s mom and dad, Anna and Joachim, shared a “chaste kiss” and poof! Mary was conceived. So not only did Mary live an absolute chaste – and therefore blameless – existence, but so did her parents. It’s not enough that Mary supposedly conceived Jesus, who is for Christians the absolute embodiment of compassion and hope, through the intervention of the holy spirit, even though she did not “know man.” (Hey, to know him is to love him, let me tell you.) The womb that carried the savior was consequently double-strength pure. Just to be sure.

Come on. We know where babies come from. And all of that was God’s idea in the first place, right? So why is love, especially love in the context of a life commitment, a compromise to anyone’s purity? A defilement. I don’t know. I just don’t know. And getting back to compassion, it means to “suffer with.” In other words, “I know how you feel.” You may well ask the tilted ceramic faces in any chapel, “How can I believe you know how I feel, if you’ve never fallen down?”

This is a woman who was most likely beautiful, kind, patient, smart, and competent. She could and would do anything that was needed for those in her charge. At the age of probably fifteen or sixteen, pregnant, she took off, probably on foot, to travel close to ninety miles to “visit” her “kinswoman,” Elizabeth. This was John the Baptist’s mom, Jesus’ auntie. According to scripture, “she remained there until Elizabeth’s confinement.” In other words, she was probably there to help with Elizabeth’s delivery. Can you see the wan and innocent Mary in those old paintings functioning as a doula? And how about the Christmas story? Immortalized in glittery Christmas cards, there’s that delicate young woman looking adoringly and with deep and abiding peace at her precious child. Guys, she traveled on the back of a donkey shortly before going into LABOR in a STABLE. She’s Wonder Woman! And I have a feeling she knows what you’ve been through. As in, “I feel you, sweetie.” As in true compassion.

So this is what gets me about our historical version of Mary. It doesn’t make sense. It makes her look clueless, a victim. Plus, the story basically has the holy spirit coming between a woman and her betrothed. And Joseph, the only one present for the birth of Jesus must have been a strong and incredibly understanding man from a good-sized family, not a cuckolded bystander forever pictured sawing wood and hammering in the background. It doesn’t make sense and it definitely confuses the issue of marriage being “an estate ordained by God.” The Church has also claimed that these two never had any other children. Seriously? Jesus Christ!

But there’s more. The whole notion of the conception of Mary and later of her famous son is that they were born almost entirely separate from human agency. It does qualify them for deity status, yet it’s a tragically flawed idea since it gives rise to so much misunderstanding. Plus it makes it darn near impossible for any human being, complete with feet of clay and typical emotions to ever approach a Mary whom they see as “virgin mother, undefiled.” It may also lie at the heart of so much of our history of self-loathing, shame, misogyny. And yes, we do have to look back as far as Genesis for more on that. But just sticking to the Marian tradition for now…here goes: what if some of it wasn’t actually true? What if we weren’t trying so hard way back then to legitimize ourselves among all the other mystery cults by conjuring up a virgin birth story? (Yes, the woods were full of them.) What if we didn’t put Mary on an untouchable pedestal for generations, remote and unreachable? What if Mary could suddenly be for us as understanding and strong and smart as a waitress with a husband and a house full of kids? What would happen to our whole system of understanding if the miracle on which we focus our devotion had more to do with compassion than on virginity? How about casting Mary as a truly and literally compassionate goddess, one who doesn’t just hear you, but one who “gets” you? Like the lovely woman who not only appeared to Juan Diego, but actually pursued him, chased him down, and then chided him when he didn’t show up at the appointed time and place. This is a mother who can and will do anything and who does not allow us to run away from her. She waits, because she knows.

For me it would make it so much easier to talk to her, so much easier to believe she understands, really understands, so much nicer to have her right here in my kitchen with a cup of coffee.