Where are you, Maria?
Where are you Maria, I wonder? It’s been 35 years since we met. 35 years since you came to live in our palace, your arm scalded by the beans.
My little brother gestured wildly and pretended he knew Spanish. “Get-ay in-ay the wagon-ay.”
I remember the way you stared at the television and how you took long, hot baths in our tub. You ate everything put in front of you, and my mom would catch my eye and incline her head toward your plate, making me see.
It’s been 35 years since your mother sent you to Egypt to escape the Herods of hunger and infection. She thought of you every day while you lived with the white strangers across the river in their 1200 square foot palace of wonders.
You did not want to return to Judea. The luxury of Egypt seduced you, the memory of hunger tugging at your heart and pulling you away from your mother’s arms. It was a dagger in her breast, but she bore that wound for you.
You did go back, though Herod still reigned. You went back with a shiny, red web of scars and some new ways of thinking about the world. You went back and we never saw you again.
Where are you now, Maria? You are 39, but look 50. You have very little bloom left. You are a poor woman from a poor family in a poor land where ignorance is a comfort.
Do you look across the river and remember anything of your sojourn in Egypt? Do you carry around a little jumbled mess of palace memories?
You have children of your own now, and perhaps grandchildren. They are the smallest people on the planet. They are the least in a land of little. Do they rub the shiny skin on your arm and ask you to tell the story of your wondrous journey?
According to Jesus you are well-named, Maria. You are the very mother of God.
The Preacher
9:02:42 AM 
|
