My soul doth whine and test the Lord

Whenever I hear the Christmas story each year, I get a little crush on one of the characters. I know that sounds peculiar, especially for a story that I’ve heard hundreds of times by now, but each time I consider it, I am struck anew by some aspect of what it took for this story to come together. Last year, I was all about Joseph—the guy who found his fiancée pregnant (“But Honey, I swear—an angel came, and then the Holy Spirit entered me…I swear, Honey, the Lord did this to me!”) and, after his own little angelic visit, chose to risk the disgrace himself. And pretty much play second fiddle to the most unbelievable Baby Daddy of all. He didn’t do that because he was a schmo, but because he was a man of humility, grace, and obedience. (I’ve flirted with the Magi, too, namely because I love how they stuck it to Herod and “went home by a different route.” Crafty buggers.)

This year, though, the person who has caught my eye is Mary. I have to confess that I haven’t thought much about her until recently, probably because so many accounts of her are so milquetoast—Holy Mother, meek and mild. But Mary does some serious spiritual heavy lifting. Heavy lifting that I’m not sure I would be doing if placed in her position.

The thing that singularly strikes me is that she sang God’s praises right after the angel delivered the news that she was going down in history as the world’s most famous unwed teen mother. Without any satisfying proof to offer her fiancé that she was an instrument of God, not a cheater. She sang. Not grumbled, not reluctantly accepted her lot, but sang—and not a feeble, wobbly-voiced little chorus of a Sunday school ditty, but the freaking Magnificat.

I guess this strikes me with particular weight this year because I am not singing the Magnificat myself, and the lot I am dealing with is much less terrifying than being a pregnant teenager about to give birth to God incarnate. While God may be choosing me for something wonderful, the song I sing most days is not “My soul doth magnify the Lord.” It goes a little something more like “My soul doth whine and test the Lord.”

This Christmas marks the third in the epic patience exercise that we call international adoption. In a lot of ways, Matt’s being away this year makes it easier because then the obvious absence is his, and not the child we thought we’d have by now. This Christmas, I’m watching some friends watch their brilliant, hilarious three year old son die. There’s a lot that doesn’t make sense to me. It is hard to understand why we wouldn’t have a kid when we so clearly want to be parents. It is utterly impossible to understand why my friends don’t get to keep the child they do have. So, the thought of looking at this steaming pile of crap and still sing “My soul doth magnify the Lord” seems insane.

The thing that makes me love (and hate, just a little) Mary, though, is that I think she still would have sung her song, even if she knew the punch line: this amazing, miraculous child that she gave up her dignity to bring into the world, well he dies. (Yeah, yeah, I know, for the greater good, that all mankind might live.) Mary, it would seem, did not wrestle with the issue I do: predicating my praise upon my understanding or agreement with how things are happening. St. Augustine summed up a heart like Mary’s nicely when he said in his Confessions, “Let him who understands praise You, and let him who does not understand praise You likewise.” (Book XI, xxxi) The truth is, I’m just not there yet.

This of course, poses another theological question that I’m just too tired to wrestle with today: So, does that mean I’ll never be chosen for anything remarkable because I’m such a loser at trusting the Immortal Invisible?” I’ll be chewing on that one for a while.

So, this year, I’m all about Mary. Because she goes where I cannot, and maybe, just maybe, if I hitch my wagon to hers I can momentarily sneak my way into such grace.

 

Advertisement