ELISABETH (ii)
Luke 1.39-56
To be old is one thing.
To be old and pregnant is another. I’ve learnt to live with the first. I’m
trying to get used to second. I think I’m becoming adept at the impossible.
I shouldn’t have been
surprised then by what happened when Mary arrived.
She was barely showing,
but I knew all the same. More than that.
I felt our common cause.
I felt our bond in heaven and earth.
Do women have special
knowledge? It’s always sounded ridiculous to me. But sometimes when we are
alone, away from the noise of men, we find our own wisdom.
And Wisdom was always
female. And the Spirit too.
When Mary walked over the
threshold I felt my baby kick inside. It wasn’t the first time, but it was
still a shock. I was still getting used to the impossible.
And when my baby kicked
he woke something in me. I stopped sleeping and saw the Spirit’s part in all
this. I saw how the Spirit was with Mary and the Spirit was with me.
That the Spirit had
blessed us both.
Ours was an extraordinary
blessing. A Trinity of Love – of Mary, the Spirit and me. A new glory coming to
birth through us.
Luke 1.46-55
And on that day when I
sang - that day I met Elisabeth –
I sang of how my body was
full of God,
and my spirit rejoiced in
the Spirit and all her works,
for she was with me in my
poverty and in my riches.
And I sang of how, even if
I am nothing to the power-brokers,
if to them I am just a
woman, just a child,
the Wild Justice of God
had blessed me and holy is her name.
And I sang, and I sang, of
her mercy – of how her mercy
will be lavished on those
who dare to rejoice in her awesome love,
who dare to oppose the
mighty and greedy,
from everlasting to
everlasting.
For she has shown the
courage of women and the toughness of mothers
and scattered the
arrogant and overbearing.
She has upturned the
thrones of the powerful and exalted the nobodies;
she has fed the starving
and has shown her fury towards the mean and selfish.
She has remembered her
people who walked in the desert,
she has remember our
ancestors,
according to her promises
to Sarah and Hagar, Ruth and Naomi, Deborah and Jael
and their descendants
forever.
