Looking yourself in the eye
and feeling alive
That is hope
— Christy LaFrance Williamson
Dear Mary,
Mother, I write these words to you woman to woman, my flesh like your flesh. I also am a mother, and I wonder if you can understand another woman’s search for personhood, for a voice in the world. I wonder if you are like the mother of Louisa May Alcott writing to her in a letter, “Let the world know you are alive!”
We do the arduous work of motherhood with our bodies and our minds, sometimes sadly losing our voices.
Will you meet us face to face and show us we are love personified? Not “people that people come out of,” as Doug Wilson cruelly said. Not a means to an end. You and I and all women are not God-created to be used and tossed aside by men, even if that man is Jesus.
“Looking Yourself in the Eye and Feeling Alive,” by Julia Goldie Day
Mother, you continue to have a voice. In Luke’s Gospel you proclaim your Magnificat for the ages. Voicing the might and mercy of our God, “bringing down the powerful from their thrones and lifting up the lowly … from generation to generation.” I hear echoes of your voice living on in those marching in recent No Kings demonstrations across the country.
Christ’s kin-dom is not to be confused with empire, yet Christian nationalism continues to make gains within our government.
Mother, we ignore the lessons of the Incarnation if we fall for the ploys of Christian nationalism.
I live in Germantown, Tenn., a wealthy suburb of Memphis, well protected from the illegal occupation of National Guard and ICE agents sent from the federal government by the Trump administration to police the city. Most Germantown residents would be surprised to learn the roots of the city lie with independent women and freed slaves. Francis Wright established a 2,000-acre farm called Nashoba, which employed about 30. A writer with some wealth, Wright faced many challenges in this endeavor. While it seems she worked hard labor to ensure success, the project was doomed by crop failure, biracial relationships, illness and bad luck. She abandoned the plan in 1830.
After leaving Tennessee, Wright continued to work her influence in America with her talent with words. She traveled to lecture with her copy of the Declaration of Independence. I imagine she would strongly encourage our current president to read the copy hanging in his Oval Office. The press was not kind to her as she promoted rights for women, strongly advocating for birth control and divorce laws. Clergy thanked her efforts by calling her the “Great Red Harlot of Infidelity” and the “Whore of Babylon.”
Here with us, Jesus showed women great respect; you were one of those women. Mother, you were favored by God, blessed and beloved by Jesus. Yet we often lose sight of the fact that Jesus was blessed to have you as a mother. Your choices and leadership led to his growth and favor with God. And so, we must also have a choice about our bodies and our very lives even if that choice is not to have children.
“Our freedom is integral to our faith and life. Our aliveness.”
Our freedom is integral to our faith and life. Our aliveness.
A year ago, I lay on the examination table in the physical therapist office for pelvic floor therapy while I listened to the therapist tell me how many women like me in menopause need this therapy and what to expect. She went on to examine me and ask how many children I had, if they were vaginal births, about my further female medical history — partial hysterectomy, breast cancer, bladder function.
She continued to chat with me saying, “Yeah, they used to just send women to mental hospitals once they got to this age and had these issues.” I laughed and replied, “You know, the Greek word for uterus is hysteria. Literally how we got the word hysterical.” She looked at me with disbelief. Later I related this story to my spouse and how I thought about also asking her if she knew gynecology basically began by experimenting on enslaved women without anesthesia.
This Advent I want to see love in a new way even though the world seems so dark and lonely. Hysteria threatens. Confusing us, lying to us, telling us we are unworthy, defiled and stained. It is not so.
Most of all I pray for myself, for all women and for any person who feels powerless so we can be our own person, as you were, Mother.
“What the Water Gave Me,” by Frida Kahlo, 1938.
In the movie Frida, Salma Hayek, playing the artist, asks her father what she wanted to be when she was a little girl. Her father says, “You wanted to be your own person.” I mentioned to a friend I planned to use the art of Frida Kahlo for this years’ Advent series; she said, “Uh, I don’t like her, she was so obsessed with herself!” I laughed and said, “All artists are!” Each artist must know herself to be able to create something from inside ourselves.
However, is it not fascinating how we women are trained not to be obsessed with ourselves? We are supposed to be focused outward.
Kahlo breaks this mold with countless masterful self-portraits. Her discovery of herself is a work of a lifetime.
“I paint myself because I am the subject I know best,” Kahlo said.
What might self-discovery have to teach women this Advent? If we can look ourselves in the eye, we take the first step in hopeful liberation from the heavy constraints the world places upon us. Love compels us to strain against the grain, to be free.
When the angel first came to you Mother, you were understandably confused by the proclamations of your role to be. However, you asked clarifying questions and advocated for yourself — arriving at your own self-discovered decisions. Even at an incredibly stressful moment, you made wise decisions, in contrast to your relative Ezekiel’s not-so-good decisions.
“We must hear your prophetic voice reflected in the women who preach from our pulpits.”
Mother, we can let the world know we are alive! We must hear your prophetic voice reflected in the women who preach from our pulpits — speaking words of justice for the brokenhearted, the hungry, the poor.
I recently read that salvation, surprisingly, was originally meant to simply mean “to be made more alive.”
Frida Kahlo wrote in her diary she was “the one who gave birth to herself.” Like the powerful “I am” statements Jesus made in the Gospels, we have the opportunity to name ourselves, to create ourselves for I am alive. We are alive.
This is what Advent must mean to the little girls and women in our churches. For those who have not seen your story come alive and take center stage for even one Sunday of Advent this is my prayer, Mother.
May God open our hearts to hear it. Amen.
This is the first in a four-part Advent series “Letters to Mary” by Julia Goldie Day in which the author prayerfully wonders with the mother of Jesus about current events, history, politics and art.
Julia Goldie Day is an ordained minister within the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and lives in Memphis, Tenn. She is a painter and proud mother to Jasper, Barak and Jillian. Learn more at her website or follow her on socials @JuliaGoldieDay.