2020's Letter to Mary - Advent by Camara Gaither

2020's Letter to Mary

Advent

by Camara Gaither

Mary, can you beckon us back to Advent in its’ truest form?

This year needs more than a forest of lights draped over stiff buildings.
It needs more than cheerful Christmas melodies.

Even the restful aroma of a plucked tree’s pine and mint
Cannot swallow such vast lament, 
It’s despair that hangs in the air.

This year needs the warmth and truth you held.
Something wider than December, deeper than good for goodness sake.
A Word that hovers overhead and gives us footing for our lostness. 

Can I sit beside you for a while Mary?
This year has spewed weighty uncertainties upon my shoulders.

I imagine you too knew a world stuffed with landmines,

A land littered with patriarchy, poverty, plague,
Wicked empires snatching breathe from weary bodies,

Grandiose temples void of the living God,

Theologies tainted and disembodied.
I imagine your ambivalence as a mother during such a time.
Maybe sorrow to birth a child into this kind of existence,

Yet a consuming joy to have your baby boy.
You must have felt the weight of your era.

As if it were made of many centuries begging for freedom, aching for hope.

Surely you felt honored for your womb to cocoon the living God,

For your life to incubate a miracle for humanity.

What were you made of Mary?
We saw you hidden in geography grotesque,

Shamefully woman, unwed, and a stranger to wealth.

You were built of mighty bones beneath brown skin.
There was a kind of ruby nectar racing through your veins
That had sameness with saints and prophecy.

Your small frame was sturdy for unleashing an alternate universe.

How did you fathom such Divine mysteries Mary?

What fortitude your young mind must have muscled
To grasp ancient inquiries, to welcome existential wonders,
To see what faithless philosophers and religious rulers couldn’t perceive,

To sense beauty unfolding beneath a brutal backdrop of chaos.
You had foresight beyond your years, an unscathed mystique to sense God 

Quietly priming all creation for rescue. 

Can I express the reverence I feel for you Mary?
I hold awe for you, a monument for mothers, for women, 

For all that are ordinary and weary like me, feeling our smallness 

Like you did, knowing our fragility when uncertainty surrounds. 

When I crawl into a crevice of your story, I soak in comfort and wisdom.

You teach me of the God that is a sojourner of our seasons,
A God who is most drawn to reside in the obscure among us.

A God holding such tenderness towards our tears.
You show me how unknowns won’t put an end to me.
You console us from ashes and heavenly realms,

Thank you ancestor, for such assurance of all that God gives.