Mary Speaks

Mary Speaks

O you who bear the the pain of the whole earth,
I bore you.
O you whose tears give human tears their worth,
I laughed with you.
You, who, when your hem is touched, give power,
I nourished you.
O you who hold the world in your embrace, 
I carried you.
O you who laughed and ate and walked the shore,
I played with you.
And I, who with all others, you died for,
now I hold you.

Madeleine L'Engle

Mary and her experience is the focus of this week's Advent sermon from Pastor Steve. 

When Mary says let it be to the archangel, it is an act of radical surrender. She offers her yes not with the meek passivity that history has so often ascribed to her; this kind of surrender is born not of weakness but of a daring strength within her and a stunning grace that shows up to sustain her. Mary’s surrender is deliberate, the choice of a woman ready to give herself to the sacred with such abandon that she agrees, with intention, to give up every last plan she had for her life.

Mary’s audacious yes propels her onto a dark way. She sets out on a path almost completely devoid of signposts or trails left by others; she chooses a road utterly unlike any she had ever imagined for herself. What must it have been like to walk a way she could hardly perceive, while carrying within herself—in her heart and womb and bones—a light unlike any the world had ever seen?

Grace and peace,
Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation