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by Kim E. Power Credits
Published in Re-imagining Newsletter
(Minneapolis) 16 (1998) November, and here made available on the Internet with
permission of the author (permission from the publisher applied for).
Re-imagining Mary at Christmas made me realise how much imagining went
into Australians' Christmas symbols. Often, we celebrate a child born in a
stable-inn-cave surrounded by starlight and snow, in the midst of December
temperatures in the nineties, scalded by hot, dry, gusty north winds. Our
shepherds are not intimate pastors who knew their sheep by name, but wind-burnt
men who, with their kelpie dogs, drove huge herds of sheep sometimes hundreds
of miles for pasture. Mary, the ideal mother adoring her first-born son, fitted
comfortably into Australian patriarchal culture. So Christmas in Australia has
always had a fairy tale aspect to it; one part baby Jesus to two parts Father
Christmas.
Traditional depictions of Mary emphasise her submissive obedience. They
are heirs to Augustine's argument that if the purest woman in the world was
obedient to a husband of lesser virtue, then the quality of a woman's
subordination was the index of her chastity. The Mary who dominated the
imagination of the church was John's Mary, standing beneath the cross, her
heart pierced with swords of Luke's infancy narrative. In their hands, and
those of their medieval heirs, her suffering had an erotic quality, for the
soul pierced by the Word was not only purified, but also united in ecstasy to
the divine Bridegroom. This depiction of feminine ecstasy as erotic suffering
is a strong theme in the Western imagination, not only in Christian art but
romantic literature and film. Yet this Mary is difficult to recover from the
Scriptures. Indeed, so little is said about Mary in the gospels, and much of
that contradictory, that she offers enormous scope for projection. Thus
contemporary liberation theology has offered us Rosemary Houghton's young
Amazon, on fire for social justice; Mary the refugee; Our Lady of Guadelupe,
icon of the oppressed and, in Christmas editions of popular TV shows, Mary the
homeless girl. The use of Marian devotion to stimulate concern for the
oppressed, the hungry and the homeless is essentially Christian. Still,
ultimately I find myself discontented with a Mariology that needs to construe
Mary as a victim, helpless and devoid of resources, material, psychological or
spiritual, who meekly accepts one disaster after another. This picture is
inconsistent with Luke's Mary who prayed the Magnificat, or even with the Mary
of Mark's Gospel who brought her family to take Jesus home, because they
thought Jesus was out of his mind.
Re-imagining such a potent symbol of womanhood demands the integration
of much experience, symbolism and research. A key question was, "What kind of
woman rears a man like Jesus"? Throughout this process, four images came
consistently to mind. Let us explore them individually, to see how they help us
re-imagine Mary.
A Mary for our place
In 1991, an exhibition of Aboriginal art and spirituality was held to
coincide with the seventh World Congress of the World Council of Churches in
Canberrra, Australia. One statue caught all eyes, featuring in most of the
newspaper articles about the exhibition. Perhaps 18"-24" high, it was a crudely
carved figure of the pregnant Mary. Her brown skin is painted with the dots
that signify a virginal girl. On her torso is painted an egg shaped womb
containing a little boy. He stands with legs apart and his arms held high, each
limb touching the perimeters of his womb, just as the ideal renaissance body
extended its limbs to occupy a circle. Mary's gaze draws that of the beholder.
Compellingly, she conveys simplicity, serenity and joy.
The story of her creation is equally touching. She was discovered by a
curator of the exhibition, Rosemary Crumlin, in a tin shed at Turkey Creek, in
the outback. There, tribal artists were developing an art collection they used
to pass on their traditions, not as static lore but as a living heritage that
had integrated their Christian beliefs with tribal wisdom. Originally, the
aboriginal community had had a white plaster Mary, which they took around the
various settlements, but she broke when the going got rough. So elder and
artist, George Mung, carved a Mary from indigenous wood. With the utmost
integrity, his statue blended the courage of the Gospel Mary with the vision
and insights of the rural tribal community. She is Mary for a sunburnt country,
a Mary to travel with us, a Mary who reconciles Aboriginal and European
heritages, with simplicity and peace.
Mary the embodiment of Joy
In 1998, at the celebratory Eucharist for the inauguration of the first
lay president at College of Notre Dame of Maryland, the Gospel story was the
Visitation. When the bishop came to Mary's Magnificat, he stopped reading as
cantors sang the version of the Magnificat that was sung at the Re-imagining
Revival. A young woman, vested in white, began to dance before the altar. This
priestly Mary, bearing Christ to his people, danced her exultation in God's
actions in and through her. Her movements were lithe and strong. For her no
bowed head and circumscribed movements. She raised her head, lifted her arms
and extended her limbs, dancing joy, embodying graceful dignity,
self-confidence and delight for us. I wept to see every young woman's heritage
incarnated, and for those of us who have not known, or will never know it.
Mary on the move
An image twinned to hers is the statue gracing the entrance to Notre
Dame itself. Cast from bronze, by a Notre Dame alumna, she too replaces a
plaster Mary who fell off her pedestal and broke her neck when storms hit.
Whilst less exuberant, she conveys a sense of forward movement, as she walks
towards us, her hands outstretched. This young artist's Mary reflects the real
young women she knew, not an idealised feminine stereotype. Her Mary tends to
be on the stocky side. Her head is erect, her face serene and mature, as she
walks purposefully into the world, bearing grace and friendship. She embodies
the motto of Notre Dame: Educating women to change the world. She makes you
wonder what she'll be like when she's older.
The walking Madonna
Dame Elisabeth Frink's "Walking Madonna" offers us such a vision. Tall,
gaunt and resolute, she walks towards her goal totally focused. She reminds me
of the archetypal outback women: spare, wiry and strong. They embody endurance.
A gift to De la Salle College in Philadelphia, from the class of '88, she is a
formidable figure, providing an extraordinary contrast to the bowed, white
plaster Mary in the Grotto nearby. This Mary is off her pedestal altogether.
She would wear boots made for walking. One should be wary of standing in her
way. Yet the students at the College treat her familiarly. When they play games
on the lawn onto which she strides, they dress her in their hats and coats. She
too is a Mary that walks into their world. She is a companion, a matriarch, a
leader, rather than an idol or fetish. She has more than a touch of the
Australian drover's wife. Isolated and alone in the bush whilst her man was
droving, she was totally responsible for her large brood. Finding her own
resources within, she contended with disasters such as snakebite, illness,
bushfire, drought or flood if she and her children were to survive. She'd be at
home on the back of a truck.
Mary re-imagined
These images coalesce for me, to produce a much more complex Mary. She
is a woman on the move, walking purposefully and with dignity, her head erect.
No plaster saint, her capacity for endurance is expressed in the materials in
which she is manifested: wood and bronze. Her beauty is not the vulnerable
immaturity of a childlike Madonna, but stems from her sense of her own
self-worth, her serenity and balance, and her focus on her goals. She is
grounded by an abiding joy that can weather storms and heartache. She is a
woman who leads us into the future, inviting us to celebrate exuberantly God's
life and graciousness alive within us and to embrace justice and compassion. In
my imagination she does not travel fearfully to Bethlehem, but embarks on it as
an adventure. Pregnant or not, she refuses to stay at home, but travels
vibrantly and graciously to birth Emmanuel where he belongs, God among us.
Kim Power
Read Kim Power’s
“Of godly men and medicine: ancient
biology and the Christian Fathers on the nature of
woman”.
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