Birth

28 years ago today I was in labour and about to give birth to our second daughter. So today I want to be with Mary as she and her baby anticipate his arrival. A time of joy and anticipation but also of fear and worry. The unique role of Mary in the story of God’s plan of salvation is oft much disputed but it speaks to me as a mother in a very special way but it also reminds me of the very tricky place women hold in the world of faith: revered and rejected all at the same time….

So two poems:

You lie within the womb of time
Kicking to break free,
To find release from the dull routine
Of feeding, loving, living.
The heart beats a note of urgency
As you push hard
As if against a stone.
Yet you do not move:
Is it still not time?
What is it that prevents you
From reaching ecstatic freedom
For which you long so much?

You are enclosed within this womb of mine
And must wait patiently,
For it is I who pulsates you to maturity
And it is I who pulsates you to maturity
And so from birth to freedom

The Womb of God Kathy Keay

Dear God
They call me woman:
They blame me for the first sin of lost innocence.
The call me Eve

Dear God
They call me woman:
They tell me
I bore your son.
The call me Mary

Dear God
They call me woman:
They show me
A greater sinner
Reconciled, forgiven
By her love allowed to be first.
The call me Mary Magdalen

Dear God
They call me woman:
They send me
From your table – unworthy
From your presence – unclean
From your life – unable

Dear God
I am a woman
Worthy of you
Cleansed by you
Able through you
Make me glad
When they call me woman

They call me Woman Charlotte Methuen

(both poems taken from Dancing on Mountains, ed Kathy Keay Marshall Pickering 1996)