St Mark's Anglican Church, District Six - Rector's Page

Dear Mother,

I arrived at Zechariah and Elizabeth's house last night just before the evening meal. I am glad the light is lasting longer, otherwise I never would have found their house. It's much smaller than I expected. Tell Father that priests seem to be as poorly paid as potters.

Cousin Elizabeth has given me a cot off of the central room where cooking and baking take place. It's comfortable, but I shall miss the sound of my brothers snoring nearby.

Zechariah and Elizabeth send their greetings.

The journey here took much longer and was harder than I had expected. Several times I had to ask Ben Juron to stop the donkeys, so I could run into the bushes to be sick. The first time, I cried. I was so embarrassed and I felt so ill. But by the third wave of nausea, I just said, "Sorry, folks. Guess it's the heat."

Of course, you and I know it's not the heat. I felt uncomfortable lying about my condition. I guess not saying anything isn't really a lie, but it feels like one to me. I felt like an imposter saying it was the heat. Who ever heard of a Jewish girl who gets sick from a little sunshine? But don't worry, Mother. I won't tell anybody. I promised you I wouldn't, and I won't. I hope you get used to the idea soon, though. This event can only be kept a secret a few more months. Then Mrs. Yorsef and the Labans will have to know, just like everybody else.

I love you, Mother, and I know it's hard for you to get used to the idea that I am pregnant. "Every mother's worst fear," you said when I told you. I know it is, and I am very sorry for your pain. I did not mean to hurt you. I have tried to be a good and dutiful daughter, but sometimes one has to make decisions for oneself. Your anger and disappointment have hurt me deeply. I am writing because I hate for our parting to have been such an ugly one. I am not a bad girl, a disrespectful child or a slut -- although I know I seem one to you. I am sorry for you that it happened this way. It wasn't what I had expected either, but I have decided that since I am now in an adult situation, I shall be an adult about it.

"Who is the father?!" you demanded to know. Mother, how can I answer that question? It baffles me as much as it may baffle future generations if this child is indeed the Messiah God sends.

"God wouldn't send his Messiah through you!" you said. "You are a stubborn, silly sixteen-year old with no experience, no husband, and no money. God would not choose you."

Mother, I agree. But God has.

Again, I am sorry for you that it happened this way. I know how pleased and excited you were about the coming wedding. I know how much you and Father think of Joseph and how upset you are to think that I have ruined my future as a woman married to a good and pious man.

As I packed to leave, I saw the robe you'd been weaving for me. The colors look so beautiful in the pattern you've chosen. It's some of your best work. I know how much of your love and dreams for me went into those skeins of wool, and I ache to think how much hurt you now feel. I know you and Father scrimped and saved in order to provide a good dowry. I realize you were excited that I was to marry someone of Joseph's stature and promise. And he was a good choice. He's a good man, faithful and kind. He has humor and heart and much skill at his trade.

I was "lucky to attract his interest," you said. Yes, but he was fortunate too. I would have been a loving wife and a hardworking, capable partner and mother. Now I suppose I shall be one without the other.

Mother, I realize you are angry with me -- that you feel ashamed because I have shamed the family and disappointed you terribly. I know you don't believe what I told you, and I am beginning to believe you never will; that perhaps I'll go full term, or a full lifetime without the support of my family. Such thoughts grieve me terribly but, as I said, "I'm an adult now," so I must face adult hurts and hardships.

Trying to talk to you and Father and contemplating breaking the news to Joseph, I keep wondering, "Am I crazy?" But being in the presence of the barren Elizabeth now six months pregnant at an age when most women are grandmothers, I see that it takes a miracle to recognize a miracle. Suddenly, I understood that you or Father or Joseph could not understand, because you haven't been in a position where something impossible happened because God made it happen. But Elizabeth has been in that position. Her gray hair and swelling belly are concrete proof that she knows God's action first-hand, and she could see that God has blessed me and chosen me for something special -- not because I am a wonderful person, just because God has.

After our family arguments and scenes last week, meeting with Elizabeth was an incredible relief. She already knew! I didn't have to tell her. When she heard my greeting, she said the babe in her womb leaped for joy, and that she knew at once that I was pregnant and that the child of my womb was blessed by God. It was such a joy to hear some voice other than my own acknowledge what God has done. I can remember exactly what she said:

"Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your voice, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord."

I felt such relief hearing a human confirmation of what the angel had said to me months before. When I'm with Elizabeth and we talk of our pregnancies and our hopes for our children, I get excited and feel so alive. But sometimes, like trying to go to sleep under the stars during the journey, or last night when I was awake and couldn't hear Benjamin and James snoring in the next room, I get frightened. I wonder what will happen to me. What will happen to this child I carry?

I know I cannot depend on you and Father for support. You have other children still to raise and feed. I know my dowry is forfeited, and I am sorry for the senseless financial hardship I have caused.

I also can't help but see your tear-stained face, and the worry behind your anger when you said to me, "The world is not kind to single women with children." I know I shall have to go it alone, and I've been wondering what I shall do. I have so few skills. I can bake bread, garden, weave cloth, make pottery, or clean another person's house.

I've been trying to remember women from home who raised children by themselves. One was Anna, whose husband died and left her well provided. Another was the widow Zephra, who had three young children. She seemed to have a hard, dreary life. I remember her coming to Father that time to have her favorite bowl repaired after one of the children accidentally had broken it. I recall how upset she was and how worried about the cost of the repair. I was so glad when Father told her he'd fix it for free.

Oh, yes, there was one other person. I never knew her name, and you would have been upset if you had known that I had spoken to her. That woman who never wore a veil and had such beautiful hair. I talked to her once in the marketplace. She told me she had a little boy she was raising by herself. I admired her, but I could see from the way the men treated her that her life was very hard.

Well, at least my child will have a mother to provide for him. Mother, at every stop on our journey we were accosted by children. They appeared as if from nowhere asking for money, food, anything. It was heartbreaking to see. They were ragged, dirty, hungry, and parentless. The littlest ones would cry so pitifully. Those old enough to talk would beg.

"Bread, kind lady? Milk, kind lady? Give us food. Lady, we are hungry!"

I've never thought of my life as a sheltered one, but I have never seen such poverty as I witnessed on this trip. It is so demeaning to see -- not just small children of four or five years of age but elderly people and the sick, all begging, all hungry, all in desperate need. People seem to lose a part of their soul when their stomachs are empty day after day. Their eyes have a vacant look as though no one lives there anymore. And the normal courtesies and manners, "Please," or "Thank you," or a friendly "Hello," aren't even possible. There's no energy for being polite -- no thought but how to survive.

It was disheartening to be surrounded by so many of God's children and not to have the money or the food to help them. There I had thought the widow Zephra with her three children was poor, but these people literally have nowhere to go, no place to sleep but the fields, and no guarantee of food except other people's generosity.

Merchant Simon said, "They could get work if they weren't lazy."

Maybe some of the older people could, but what about the children? What would they do? The land in that area is so barren and sandy, no vegetables or grass could possibly grow here. I doubt there's much anyone can do but pray to God and share one's meal as many of us travelers did.

Once while we were getting water at a village well, a Roman chariot came racing down the road without slowing down. It was as though the men, women, and children who had to rush to get out of his way didn't even exist. He must have been a centurion or some other important Roman officer. His bright red cloak was decorated in purple, and his horses' harness was trimmed in gold. The riches of his equipage offered a stark contrast to the dry, ugly landscape and the sunburned, hopeless faces of the people from that village. I doubt they see many horses in this region, since only the very wealthy can afford them.

It occurred to me that selling one of those horses would provide enough money to feed these homeless children for more than a year. Merchant Simon just laughed at me and told me, "It's just like a silly woman to have no head for business. Those who have, get more, while those who don't have, won't ever have anything in this Godforsaken world."

I don't care if I'm impractical. I don't think God has forsaken the world. I don't think God has forsaken us. I don't believe God intends for some people to sit on thrones of gold or race their chariots through a village street while its inhabitants can't even afford sandals. It reminds me of that song of the Anawim Community:

He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,

Maybe that is why God has chosen me. Maybe God's preference for the poor means God doesn't want his son born into the family of a king or nobleman. After all, how can a rich man understand what it is to be poor? And how can one defend the poor or defeat the rich if one is oneself rich and powerful? I guess wealth and power are not the things that God most wants from us or wants to give us.

If this son of mine is to be the champion of the poor and the redeemer of Israel, his life will not be an easy one. Men like that man in the chariot will want to kill him. Rich men will hate him and call him a revolutionary. Poor ones will want to use him up in their own need and greed.

And, he won't have time for his mother. I will have to stand aside and say, "He isn't my son. He doesn't belong to me. His work is his own. I am still the handmaid of the Lord and I must not interfere."

Mother, I am having to make a lot of changes in the way I think about the world and how we are to live. I wish you and I could talk of these things without anger and accusations. I want my child to know his grandmother.

Signed with love,

Your daughter, Mary