12 December 2002
Mary
by Nanci
Olesen
Every woman who has ever given birth loves
to tell her birth story. She loves to tell
it in excruciating detail. She'll tell it
to anyone who will listen.
One ravenous night some 2000 years ago,
a woman named Mary brought a baby named
Jesus into the world and laid him in swaddling
clothes in the manger. It's the ultimate
birth story, I guess. Now that I have birthed
a few myself, I can't help but think of
the whole story in a completely different
light. Now that I know the howl of the moment
of birth, the awesome pain and the unrecognizable
joy, the unbelievable relief of having completed
a task which took my body completely over
and brought me to the end of the earth and
back, I look at those nativity scenes quite
differently.
She always looks serene, Mary. She sometimes
looks a bit posessed. I think I understand.
I look at Mary's face wherever I see her—people's
front lawns, store windows, Christmas cards,
nativity scenes in front of the dentist's
office. There she is and there is that expression.
She looks so serene, so radiant.
I imagine that we are seeing her several
hours after the big event.
I think of that time, an hour after the
birth of a baby. Someone has helped you
sit up, maybe you've gone so far as to brush
your hair, your forehead has been washed
with a warm cloth. A drink of water. And
your still-shaking hands reach for the baby,
the baby who has been born, of all things.
You gaze in wonderment at the face and
hands of that glorious child. A face of
a stranger, a face of someone you've known
all your life. Every minute detail of a
human being. You have no idea what the next
33 years are going to hold for this little
person... or for you as the mother of this
person... WHO IS THIS? And the wave of love
and joy and amazement will perhaps never
be stronger than this moment.
And that's how you see Mary, over and over,
every artist's rendering... an hour or so
after: she kneels before this baby, with
her arms open. Her radiant face just looks
down at His radiant face looking up. Radiant
joy. Radiant hope. Radiant unkown. Radiant
love.
—Nanci Olesen
producer and host, MOMbo: 1990-2007 |
