![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/55\/2024\/12\/thumbnail_20241016_102919.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nMOTHER LOAD<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
From the very beginning
\nThe burden was clear
\nSometimes bearable
\nSometimes severe<\/p>\n
Ate from the apple
\nShared it with him
\nDisobeyed the order
\nIndulged the whim.<\/p>\n
What was the outcome?
\nThe fruit of the act?
\nShe \u2018knew\u2019 good and evil?
\nShe experienced it in fact?<\/p>\n
Did the earth creature join her?
\nDid he crumble into dust?
\nDid he die in an instant?
\nOr just tumble into lust?<\/p>\n
To love and to cherish
\nBecomes \u2018desire and dominate\u2019
\nObjectify the \u2018other\u2019
\nSo you can subjugate.<\/p>\n
Suddenly self conscious
\nInstantly aware
\nThere are no coverings
\nOnly nakedness there.<\/p>\n
Hiding in the garden,
\nThe creature in shame
\nRunning from her Maker
\nLike some kind of game.<\/p>\n
Passing the blame on
\nFrom God to the wife,
\nFrom the wife to the snake
\n\u2018The\u2019 creator of strife.<\/p>\n
Banished from the garden,
\nBut clothed by their God
\nNot allowed to live forever
\nFind a living from the sod<\/p>\n
Pain in her labor
\nShortness of breath
\nThe mother of all living
\nGives birth near to death<\/p>\n
And would she be able
\nTo raise Cain at all?
\nOr will her next offspring
\nBe first to fall?<\/p>\n
And how to redeem this?
\nSet the process in reverse
\nPut a stop to the death toll
\nUndoing the curse?<\/p>\n
II<\/p>\n
From the very beginning
\nThe burden was clear
\n\u201cBe it unto me as you said,
\nThe Lord\u2019s servant is here.\u201d<\/p>\n
A virginal conception
\nHad a child without a man
\nWhich no one expected
\nAnd few would understand.<\/p>\n
She received a word of warning
\nA sword would pierce her soul
\nBut the death of her first born
\nWould make the race whole.<\/p>\n
There beneath a crooked tree
\nStood that woman and a man
\nNeither disobeyed the orders
\nEach accepting the plan.<\/p>\n
Then He rose in the garden
\nReopened its gate
\nTo the tree for the living
\nTo the Adam without mate.<\/p>\n
And there in the Scriptures
\nWas a promise true and sure
\n\u201cShe\u2019ll be saved through the childbearing\u201d
\nThat Mary did endure.<\/p>\n
The story revisited
\nThe human tale revised
\nMotherlode now delivered
\nCurse reversed before our eyes.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
THEOLOGICAL MUSINGS<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
It has long been the case that Christians, including theologians have compared and contrasted the stories of Eve and Mary, just as they have contrasted the stories of the first and the last Adams, Jesus being the last one.\u00a0 No descendants could into the world without Eve, the mother of all living, and no one could come into the world to come without Mary, the mother of the messiah.\u00a0\u00a0 Sometimes even the church fathers resorted to typology or allegory to find connections between the stories of Eve and Mary.\u00a0 For example Eve beneath the tree with the fruit and the snake, is seen as like Mary beneath the cross, only Eve listened to the serpent and disobeyed God, while Mary listened to her Son and obeyed his words.\u00a0 There is then considerable precedent for the kind of comparisons and contrasts that are going on in this poem.<\/p>\n
One of the things I was exploring and trying to probe in this poem is the burden that women have always borne since the beginning of humankind, and by this I do not just mean bearing the burden of childbearing, though that is no small task in itself.\u00a0 I referring to the fact that women have tended to be viewed as either like Eve or Mary, with nothing much in between. From deceived by a serpent to believing an angel women have been seen as either sirens or saints. This has been quite a burden to bear, to say the least, and it is unfair.\u00a0\u00a0 But there is more.\u00a0\u00a0 Mary had the additional burden of not only being the mother of a controversial messianic figure who came into this world in an irregular manner, but she was warned as well that Jesus would leave the world in a shocking manner as well.<\/p>\n
The correspondences between these stories underline a few dominant Scriptural themes: 1) God is a God of second chances but 2) on the second go around it is none other than his Son that makes sure that the human tale is set right and will have a happy ending. In other words, God takes matters into his own hands, and yet all hangs on a Jewish maiden saying\u00a0 \u201cbe it unto to me as you have said, I am the handmaiden of the Lord.\u201d\u00a0 Human response to the divine initiative is neither pre-empted nor pre-determined.\u00a0 The curse was reversed through an obedient woman just as the curse was initiated by a disobedient one.\u00a0 The human drama involves both divine and human decisions, and women have as much to do with salvation as they do with fallenness.\u00a0 In fact, the author of 1 Tim. 2.8-15 is prepared to remind us that \u201cwomen shall be saved through the Childbearing\u201d, an oblique reference to the birth of Jesus.\u00a0 But none of this story would have turned out well if God had not raised Jesus from the dead.\u00a0 All the obedience in the world cannot produce divine grace or salvation. Only the divine activity itself can produce such an outcome.\u00a0\u00a0 Resurrection is not the outcome of a human self-help program. One then must give God the glory, while still giving Mary her due.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 MOTHER LOAD \u00a0 From the very beginning The burden was clear Sometimes bearable Sometimes severe Ate from the apple Shared it with him Disobeyed the order Indulged the whim. What was the outcome? The fruit of the act? She \u2018knew\u2019 good and evil? She experienced it in fact? Did the earth creature join her? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":68605,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[15097],"class_list":["post-68767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-the-bearable-birth"],"yoast_head":"\n
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