Mary’s Christmas

What does it mean that the Christmas holiday has always been about a mans birth long ago, when actually most of the story that we have that we have really is about a girl and a pregnancy? This girl named Mary, fourteen, in a different culture, visited by an angel and told she had found favor with God.  She was told of a miracle pregnancy that would take place, and she consented.   The story is quite strange, and beautiful.  This young girl, clearly connected to something greater, clearly longing to be a part of something miraculous and special.  In Mary, I hear a longing, a curiosity and an openness.   But, those words and postures don’t sound so miraculous— we all experience longing, curiosity and some bit of openness.  But,  I wonder if Mary was special because she was asking and then paying attention?  I wonder if there were lots of possibility of Christs being born, and Mary actually was looking in a way that others just didn’t or possibly couldn’t?  I wonder if this story was written down ,and others weren’t? I wonder If Christmas is actually about Mary’s pregnancy, and co-creation of Christ.  Something that I have found myself doing in a lot of these strange bible stories, is to read them with an open curiosity, and then pay attention to what arises. 

For me, this story asks me “What am I paying attention to?   If I were to birth something as magnificent as Christ… an incarnated love, a healer, a new way of seeing, and hope into a blind world, would I consent? This Christmas I find myself sitting with that invitation to notice the angels— those powerful beings who are a little scary,  that come in the night and whisper a sound like angelic voices asking if I want to bring forth new hope.  And with a little nervousness, a lot of curiosity and openness, I say yes.   I know it’s not going to makes sense for much of the word, and yet, I know it’s time.  It’s time to become a co-creator with God, and birth new hope into the world.  Mary Christmas