One of the Day School classes agreed to play the parts for an Advent Pageant at chapel tomorrow. We'll have all the players -- Mary and Joseph, the magi, the shepherds with their sheep, and the angels -- but won't get to Jesus' birth. Everyone will be on their way, still waiting for the moment of birth. It's a funny place to be.
Last night the contemplative prayer group at St. Aidan's experimented with some Ignation prayer of the imagination. We read through Luke's nativity story and then inserted ourselves into the story. Someone became a shepherd complete with her border collie in awe of this baby who was so baby-ish (it is so hard to imagine the incarnation, with God becoming one of us, even at our most vulnerable). Someone became Mary feeling scared and alone (we often beatify Mary so quickly and forget how terrifying the birth experience must have been for her, so far from home and loved ones, so young). Someone became a shepherd that didn't necessarily believe the angels' pronouncement but joined the other shepherds to travel to Bethlehem (often that is how our faith life works - we come along on the ride with others longing for those moments when we can claim it as our own). Being 7 months pregnant myself, and assuming that Joseph probably would have made himself scarce for the birth as was the custom, and not being able to stand the idea of Mary going through this birth on her own in this unsterile, unfriendly environment, I became a midwife that Joseph found in Bethlehem to help Mary. I brought her blankets and the swaddling cloth she used to wrap baby Jesus. I marveled at her awe of him and also got this sense from her that while she loved him, she somehow knew he was not really hers to hold onto too tightly. I worried about the unclean shepherds coming to visit this new mother and child -- so unsanitary, so improper. But then when I saw their faces, somehow it seemed right.
We are all pieces of this Christmas story, but how rarely we recognize it.
Last night the contemplative prayer group at St. Aidan's experimented with some Ignation prayer of the imagination. We read through Luke's nativity story and then inserted ourselves into the story. Someone became a shepherd complete with her border collie in awe of this baby who was so baby-ish (it is so hard to imagine the incarnation, with God becoming one of us, even at our most vulnerable). Someone became Mary feeling scared and alone (we often beatify Mary so quickly and forget how terrifying the birth experience must have been for her, so far from home and loved ones, so young). Someone became a shepherd that didn't necessarily believe the angels' pronouncement but joined the other shepherds to travel to Bethlehem (often that is how our faith life works - we come along on the ride with others longing for those moments when we can claim it as our own). Being 7 months pregnant myself, and assuming that Joseph probably would have made himself scarce for the birth as was the custom, and not being able to stand the idea of Mary going through this birth on her own in this unsterile, unfriendly environment, I became a midwife that Joseph found in Bethlehem to help Mary. I brought her blankets and the swaddling cloth she used to wrap baby Jesus. I marveled at her awe of him and also got this sense from her that while she loved him, she somehow knew he was not really hers to hold onto too tightly. I worried about the unclean shepherds coming to visit this new mother and child -- so unsanitary, so improper. But then when I saw their faces, somehow it seemed right.
We are all pieces of this Christmas story, but how rarely we recognize it.
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