December 10th

The Crowning of Mary as Queen of Heaven

While I will endeavor NOT to repeat the double-duty of days in the future, the point I made for the previous decade is related to this one.

The Immaculate Conception is usually thought of as the conception of Jesus, rather than the conception of Mary without original sin. But what's often added to that, in our thoughts and in our words, is the presumption that therefore Mary was born without the tendency to sin or the inevitability of sin the rest of us are subject to.

And that's the thing. I remember when I was young I once asked my mother why people said we had no choice but to sin when each of our individual sins was avoidable. This is true. And Mary is our shining example of someone who avoided them completely. The sinless human, like her Son.

And usually here I think how shocking and remarkable that God chose a human being to be Queen of Heaven, but I'm going for something a bit more challenging today.

Because the idea of not having a choice but to be sinful made more and more sense as I got older, and not just because my sins piled up and I wanted more excuses (although there is that). Also because I began to really know what it felt like to sin without realizing, without consciously choosing. And not just when you feel out of control in anger or, what often happened with my sister, that some combination of emotions and habit took over so that there was no thinking or choosing or anything that felt like me involved. It felt like it wasn't me.

And then there are cases like the boy in high school I unknowingly (except I did know) bullied my senior year of high school. I was shocked to learn he took it as such, but I did know I was making him furious. I did know he wasn't happy with our exchanges. I thought we play-fought, but I saw how angry he became. The fact that I become that angry and brush it off is no excuse for not seeing.

So you think: Mary must have been blessed to not have that - that thing that makes it not your decision any more even if you can later admit that it totally was. All the subconscious stuff that gets stirred up without you paying attention and just explodes out in ways that don't feel like they are in your power to control or choose to do. And so we tie that up in a bow with original sin and blame the apple and Eve.

Anything to keep it from being our responsibility.

But that's just the thing: all of our subconscious issues, all of our inner demons and bad habits and internal pressures and dark tendencies are our property. We own them. They are our responsibility. We have enormous power in our world. We make decisions that change lives. All the freakin' time. It is our responsibility to have all our, pardon the language on a religious reflection blog but there's no better word, all of our shit together. Because we can keep it together.

We choose not to. Because we don't want to deal with all of it. We want to lock it away, pray it away, just shove it in a corner and say that it's not a part of who we are, of who we choose to be. We cut away a part of our selves.

What happens when you repress something?

Um, it goes away?

No! It comes back all scary and pissed off!

It comes bursting out in sin, in anger we didn't know we could snap to that fast, in bullying we don't want to think we know we're doing, in sarcasm and hate that we spew casually. In things we say without thinking, things we only barely mean. But they wouldn't be in our head unless they were a part of our thoughts. And even if it's a subconscious thing that put them there, that is still our job. That is still part of ourselves and thus our responsibility to keep from hurting others.

It's part of one of my overall theories of life, but this is a better way to say it. The way I usually express it is: At the end of the day, who you are is how you treat people; your secret pain may explain your actions, but it does not excuse them.

What I really mean is that all of the terrible things that have been done to you and the chaos that has created in your psyche is still you. It is still your stuff to deal with. And in so many cases, all that stuff was put there by someone else's shitty actions, but now that it's there it is your shit - and if you pass it along in damage to other people then that is on you.

So what this has to do with Mary, way back up there, is that I think she did. I think she wasn't blessed to be without all of these internal pressures. I think (or like to think) that she took charge of all the parts of her self and she made sure it was a choice, that she recognized that choice and kept everything together so that she could make a choice, and that every time she was given the opportunity she chose not to sin.

As we could do, if we would stop repressing. We're human, we're flawed, the flesh is weak - but if the spirit is divided into parts some of which we shove away in closets not realizing how much power we are giving them in the process, then our better natures don't stand a chance. Because we refuse to even look properly at what they're fighting against.

And I don't mean everyone needs therapy or something. I mean that everyone has a responsibility for their id as much as their superego. You can't just negotiate between your best and worst self, pat yourself on the back if your best self wins out more often than your worst self. All the parts of them are you. Every thought you have ever had came from you.

You have to take responsibility for keeping everything that makes you sin and lash out in check, in your control. Take ownership of all parts of your mind, psyche and soul. If you shove them away, you give them the power to control you as if they are some other entity. Maybe, in the worst cases, that's exactly what they become - tools in the hands of the Devil.

Every part of you, beautiful and terrible, is your responsibility. Every sin is avoidable.

Mary did.