Mother of God

When Mary uttered her brief and obedient, “So be it,” I hardly dare say what happened then — the word of the creature brought the Creator into the world.

— Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow, 1874

Today I am thinking about Mary, the mother of Jesus. I’m writing this on Mother’s Day, so that’s probably why. But I think about Mary a lot these days, being still somewhat at the beginning of my love for her — as if she is the mother I didn’t know I had.

Anything I write about women and Christianity is bound to be controversial. Friends ask me why I’d be part of a faith that seems so focused on men. Others worry that maybe I worship Mary. Some say — rather hopefully — that she is really our version of the Goddess. And to these questions I have to answer 1) There’s more to ancient Christianity than meets the eye 2) Venerate and worship are two different things 3) No, not a goddess, and that’s the beauty of it.

I have been in communities where I felt patronized and minimized as a woman — where men patted me on the head and told me that my role was “to be a support to my husband,” or “to bear children.” I have also been in communities where men were considered somewhat evil, or at least rather pathetic, but we forgave them anyway (maybe).

It wasn’t until I attended an Orthodox service that I experienced a community offering profound reverence to a woman:

More honorable than the Cherubim and more glorious beyond compare than the Seraphim, without corruption thou gavest birth to God the Word. True Theotokos, we magnify thee!

“Theotokos” means “God-bearer” and it’s what Orthodox call Mary. The implications are astonishing: a human-divine cooperation by which God becomes physically present in the world, in a form we can relate to and understand.

For Mary to have “accepted Christ into her heart” as she did (making her the first Christian), she had to have a deeply intimate connection and transparency with the Divine, cultivated over years. Tradition tells us Mary was brought to the Temple when she was three to be raised there, and that she left her parents and climbed happily up the steps as soon as she arrived. We are told that she slept in the Holy of Holies (which, if one is familiar with Jewish tradition, is outrageous. I was shocked when I first heard that teaching. But there is something quite wondrous about it.)

Orthodox believe that we are created in the image of God and that our journey is to remember who we are in that image — to come back to our Edenic selves, as it were, in a process called Theosis, or Divinization. This does not mean we are the Source of the universe; rather we journey closer and closer to the Source, until we become united with the Divine as iron takes on fire. The Theotokos is a perfect example of this, and as such she gives me hope. Mary is not a goddess, because she doesn’t have to be. She does not have special powers that I don’t have. She is an ordinary human who opened herself fully to God. This is something every single human being can do. In fact, it is our destiny. That is why we can hymn a human woman so extravagantly.

Mary elevates not only women, but all humanity, by reminding us of who we are and of our incredible potential for goodness. In mother-love she calls my attention to the wind of the Divine stirring in and around me — and gently prods me to have the courage to say, “So be it.”

Thin Places

“Standing in the temple we stand in heaven.”

I have spoken of the origins of the Christian temple in the experience of the “assembly as the Church.” We can now add that insofar as this assembly is undoubtedly conceived of as heavenly, the temple is that “heaven on earth” that realizes the “assembly as the Church.” It is the symbol that unites these two realities, these two dimensions of the Church – “heaven” and “earth,” one manifested in the other, one made a reality in the other.

--from The Eucharist by Fr. Alexander Schmemann, St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2000.


I always tell myself that liturgy is a hard sell. Many folks see liturgy as “empty ritual;” others see it as superstition, still others see it as boring, interminably long and irrelevent to their daily lives.

But I need ritual. I’d even go so far to say that we all need it – a connecting point with the Divine, a place to physicalize our spiritual longing. I’ve taken part in many spiritual rituals in my lifetime – passed the sacred pipe around, danced to the drums, sung Kum Ba Ya around the campfire, prayed inside a Sukkah, attempted yoga poses my body was not ready for. But specifically I have found that I need the Liturgy. I need it not just for the incense and the icons and the chant, not just for crossing myself and bowing or for the priest coming out of the altar all in gold – I need it because it connects me with a specific Story that resonates for me like no other Story has. The idea of the Divine becoming human and entering the human experience in order to co-suffer with me, with my friends and enemies, and with every torture victim, every hungry person, every abused child, every one of us who has ever felt lost and alone – that is a concept that will not let me go.

Faith in this Story is just that. Faith and nothing more. I can live with the possibility that it may not be true – that God may not have become incarnate and entered history. But I have decided to live my life as if it is true. I’m willing to be that foolish because the notion of Jesus the God-Man fills me with completeness.

The Celts spoke often of “thin places,” where heaven and earth came together. In Orthodox thinking, the Liturgy is such a place. When I forget myself, time stops and I am there in the presence of Christ, walking through the whole Story with Him. When I do not forget myself, I am focused on my singing, my children behaving themselves, the time, my rumbling stomach. But even then, He is there and the words stay with me all week long:

Only-begotten Son and immortal Word of God, Who for our salvation willed to be Incarnate of the Holy Theotokos and ever-virgin Mary, Who without change became man and was crucified; Who is one of the Holy Trinity, glorified with the Father and the Holy Spirit: O Christ our God trampling down death by death, save us.

I’ve heard it said that life is really just about showing up. So this is where I show up on Sunday mornings, presenting myself to Mystery, allowing it to be bigger than I am, hoping that the co-suffering love of Christ will take ahold of me so that I can take it out into the world and do what I could not otherwise do.

Justice, Hypocrisy and the Big Question

"Real justice means the attainment of Theosis, the reunification with God who created us in His own image... When that is done, everything within ourselves will begin to work in accordance to our essential nature. Then our minds and hearts will open up and be able to perceive the things of this world with radically different lenses and criteria, spiritual criteria. At that point, justice will be experienced and function, not as commonly understood, but as total, absolute and unconditional Divine love. Paradoxically, what we notice is that whenever humans align themselves with Divine justice as unconditional love, then the laws of logic are transcended and God works wthin them in such a way as to vindicate them both on earth as well as in Heaven. That's why hermits who have attained saintliness are least judgmental with people. One would expect them to be austere and intolerant of human weakness. The opposite is true.

...the meaning of Christ's words, 'Blessed be those who thirst for justice...' in reality implies 'Blessed be those who thirst for the Grace of God.' For God is justice, truth, peace, everything."

--From, The Mountain of Silence, by Kyriacos C. Markides (quoting Father Maximos of the Panagia Monastery, Cypress)

I embraced my faith in a personal way during my teens. It was the unconditional love thing that "got" me. But I always lived with a kind of embarrassment about my faith. I would say, "I'm a Christian, but I'm not the sort who... preaches on street corners, handles snakes, buys air-conditioned dog houses on donor funds, condemns people, thinks religion and politics are the same thing, (fill-in-your-vice-of-choice)."

It was important for me to distance myself from "those people" because overall, I had to be smart. Smart

and good. And not a hypocrite. Churches are loaded with hypocrites. You hear about it every day: scandal, abuse, misuse of money, manipulation, lies. In fact, I've been angry enough at churches in my lifetime that during some periods, I've tried to simply stay away from them. Voila! No more hypocrisy! Well, that was the idea.

But I've discovered, as I've sat on boards, worked for various entities and volunteered in various groups, that every time people come together with a set of ideals there will be hypocrisy. Hypocrisy and vice are in no way confined to religious bodies.

So the big question for me changed from, "How can I find the perfect group?" to "What ideals do I want to live for?" And also, "Who can show me how to live those ideals?"

There's a long story here that I'm not going to tell right now. But here's what I'm discovering: my faith gives me tools to live according to my deepest ideals.

And.... I am a hypocrite.

I live with that in gentle acceptance. The journey is long, the gap between me and the Divine is great. And it is a hopeful journey.