If we spend time this Advent with Mary, and women in general, what might we discover? Today’s Advent readings lend themselves to discovering women are adventurers. The Old Testament addresses “wanderers”, but it is a rebuke. People have wandered far from their family of origin, the tribe with its law and traditions. Such ventures prove hazardous, specifically for women. The Gospel of the Advent season includes a tale of Mary who ventures far from home when pregnant with Jesus and faces many hazards. For women to venture anywhere, physically or mindfully, is to be rebuked and targeted with hazards, still now.
Women adventurers have always faced rebuke and hazard. In Biblical times, women were restricted by and to their family of origin. To venture even outside the house was to face rebuke and hazard. Mary faced both then when she travelled to Bethlehem, as decreed by the Lord Caesar’s law. Many women face physical and mindful hazards today when they travel or attempt to, continuing to have scriptural / patriarchal dictates and restrictions set against them so as to keep them in their place. The patriarchal Lords – priests, rabbis, imams as well as fathers, husbands, bosses and others – set many such laws and traditions. They are set about physical appearance, emotion, voice, as well as movement itself. The lords assert it is for order, enabling a person to know and keep their place within relationships, their beliefs within a group, their identity within their tribe. Thus, a woman is not to violate that order by being ‘inappropriate’ or ‘adventurous’ in even seemingly minor matters; dress, emotions, voice, movement. If she is adventurous, she is judged deserving of the rebukes and hazards done her. Women are coerced into accepting punishment, being restricted, choosing indirect avenues, limiting our ventures. Though taught and coerced as such, we women are, and will always be, adventurers. We venture out beyond lords and beyond their many traditions. We venture into simple physical appearance freedoms such as wearing trousers like early suffragettes did who got arrested or like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did on recent magazine covers and got rebuked. We venture into emoting disagreement though we are rebuked with ‘hysteria’ like Christine Blasey Ford though her assaulter, Brett Kavanaugh, fit the symptoms. We venture into public voice like Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer speaking the truth about lord Trump “fomenting anger and giving comfort to those who spread fear and hatred and division,” while she is rebuked and targeted with death threats still. We venture into moving freely around democratic decisions, economic endeavors, theological assertions, and spiritual ethics like women of color especially, who, though constantly facing rebuke and hazard, are adventurous peacemakers in all these fields. Adventurous peacemakers moving beyond lords and their traditions so as to bring people together include Humaira Saqib, journalist and founder of the Afghan Women News Agency; Malika Jurakulova, Tajikistani lawyer advocating for women’s economic equality; Mossaret Qudeem, Pakistani founder of PAIMAN devoted to de-militarizing young men targeted by religious extremists to be suicide bombers; Jennifer Beer, U.S. based founder of Peacemaking in Your Neighborhood promoting common ground in routine and daily conflicts; and each and every one us who lives by the spiritual ethic of our arms wide open, adventurously accepting all people as our divinely chosen family of origin.
“You are not a tree. You are not bound to the ground you walk on. You have wings and dreams and a heart full of wonder. So pick up your feet and go. Spread kindness like a wildflower wherever you go. Fall in love with the life you live, and always leave people better than you found them.” (Drewniverses)
Prayer: Spirit of Adventure, open me to all life.
Question: What adventures await me?
November 29, 2020 Gospel Mark 13:33-37 First Sunday of Advent