Letters to Mary: Women have creative power

Advent shows us something about power that the palace always forgets. Real strength doesn’t powder its face with contempt. The authority that spoke galaxies into being entered the world through a woman’s body and trusted her to say yes. — Derek Penwell

Dear Mary,

In the movie Nightbitch, Amy Adams’ character is a new mother. We watch her somewhat typical journey until the moment she jolts up from a dinner party table and says, “I could crush a walnut with my vagina.” My favorite line in the movie comes later when her distressed husband asks, “What happened to my curious, freewheeling wife?” The woman only known as “mother” in the movie answers, “She died in childbirth.”

Mother, a clever person has put your icon on the yellow Gadsen “Don’t Tread on Me” flag, as if women, minorities and LBGTQ people are somehow rising from the bottom of the hierarchy to tread on the white and powerful. I would laugh if it weren’t so horribly ironic that white men are following men like Pete Hegseth and his toxic masculine Crusade-like message of fight makes right. We should keep front of mind that crushing the serpent underfoot is not a literal act of violence for you, Mother, but an act of power over those who seek to deceive.

Experts have identified a problem in our culture with loneliness and crisis in young men. These feelings of isolation must be quite confusing without the leadership of a wise mother. Mother, I pray for the mothers of the world, as our powerful voices are needed to influence and lead when weak men like Hegseth bark and bomb for power.

Often, I hear blame placed on absent fathers, but more than anything I believe our young men need to be raised by strong women. The more women are oppressed, the less power and influence we have over our developing sons, like you had with your son Jesus.

Mother, you tread where you please and your power is from God, not an earthly government. Despite the incorrect and inappropriate Presidential Message on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception released Dec. 8, you exist outside of government and calendar. The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception refers to the conception of you, Mother, so that you would be born free from sin (Baptists do not believe this but, nonetheless).

While the statement says, “Mary has played a distinct role in our great American story” and gives examples of your impact on American history, it is inappropriate to honor you in connection to the state in a way no other president has done. The president can dance awkwardly to “Ave Maria” all he wants at political rallies pretending to honor you because he likes young virginal girls. However, his government must adhere to the First Amendment of the United States Constitution building a wall of separation between church and state.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently said, “The best we can give the baby is the infant formula that God made, which is the infant formula in a mother’s breast.” Comedian Michelle Wolf said in response: “Could you give women a more passive role in the extreme energy and resource expenditure that is breastfeeding? Sure, God did all the work.”

Mother, I know you see the power in our bodies to feed our babies with breast milk or by mixing up a bottle, because fed is best. I know you see the work and the tears and the pain. May our children grow in wisdom and stature as a result of our power.

Mother, your power is royal but not like that of a king. We have misunderstood power to be about dominance and control. The fathers of our faith — and face it, they have all been fathers — have shaped us to understand the kingdom of God as a land in which we have a male ruler with “patriarchal dominance,” says author Meggan Watterson, which is why white Christian nationalism is on the rise. Kingdom translated from the Greek word vasilieio or basileio also can be translated as royal power, referring to a power existing within us, Watterson says.

Mother, I suggest power can be better understood as creative. This is a power mothers like you and I comprehend on an intrinsic level. We have created humans with our own powerful bodies. These acts of creation are painful and not without sacrifice. We can even become different people once we have given birth because there is no going back, people are changed.

You say in Luke 1, your “soul magnifies the Lord” and your “spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” These words are your creative expression, your art. I feel much the same when I paint; I feel attuned to spirit. When you and I create life and art that goes on to live and move in the world we manifest ourselves, we birth ourselves and others benefit.

Frida Kahlo was no different, Mother. She was a political artist, painting herself in defiance of the male gaze, challenging the viewer to meet her eyes. She longed for her own body to cooperate with her wishes and for her country’s people to rule themselves. Her pain, feminine power and Mexican culture are on full view. A Kahlo painting is a beautiful complexity. I cannot help but see the necklace of thorns in her self-portrait pictured here is like the crown of thorns your Son wore, Mother. Perhaps our sorrow, the sorrow of women, somehow powerfully brings a new thing to life which did not exist before. That is power, is it not?

This Advent may we feel your power deep in our bones, deep where our sorrow and longing lives, and may we know we are not alone because this is where God lives.

 

This is the second 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.