Thursday, February 23, 2012

Elizabeth and Mary

So, I haven't had any luck tracking down Elizabeth's lineage or even common names in the line of Aaron, so I thought I would work the Visitation into the next bit. With the theme of Elizabeth's monologue aiming at Elizabeth standing between John and all the concerns of the world from which he is exempt, it's startling to think of Mary in the context of that. Here she is, the virgin who ends up nearly divorced in disgrace. So easily we could see the Visitation as Mary fleeing to the one person who might understand her situation (which she did find in Elizabeth), but it's also remarkable to hear the Magnificat when you think about what Mary must have known was waiting for her at home. "For now all generations shall call me blessed."

Mary then lists reversals that God will make - the mighty brought down to lift the humble. And God will expose His virgin mother to shame. He will also rescue her, but Elizabeth too endured shame before she was rewarded with a miracle. The miracle child was the more blessed for the shame Elizabeth endured first, as Joseph's belief and sheltering of Mary was the more remarkable for not coming naturally to him.

Mary seems in the Magnificat immune to such concerns. In the monologue, I imagine Elizabeth not immune to them. In fact, I imagine her bearing the weight for John and Mary both.

"List of names.

Elizabeth. Elizabeth who married Zechariah. Elizabeth the curst, who bore no child for her husband. Who lived righteously, but at whom others looked with suspicion. The curst. They say she is righteous, but why then is she barren? They say her husband served the Lord with great labor and so little faith in miracles. They say he went into the Temple alone one day and came out mute. Zechariah, the one struck dumb, the husband of Elizabeth the curst, who thought her line would end with her.

But after Elizabeth and Zechariah came John. A new name. A new name in an old family. A miracle, a promise. A new kind of priest from the old line of priests. The fulfillment of a promise, and not just the one that struck my husband dumb. I am born of priests, and I bore the son of a priest, but nothing could have prepared me to raise a prophet.

My womb quickened and my shame was gone. I was to have a miracle child. When most my shame had been piled on, God showed all the gossips, all the judges of this world that my shame had been all for His greater glory. I endured the gossip and the darkness so that the light might shine the brighter. I bore the weight. I would bear it again.

He leapt in my womb at Mary's approach. My cousin Mary, so young, so unprepared for the shame that it would bring her to bear the Son of God. Mary was so new to shame, new to gossip. [New to all the unpleasant things that people who think they know what is righteous do to others.] So full of light and praise and holiness that she never imagined what the world would do to her for living outside its precepts - even if she did it for God. Mary, Mother of God, who could not imagine that the world would turn on her for following God's will. Or perhaps she simply did not care. "From now on all generations shall call me blessed" she said. All generations but her own.

I should have taken the warning. My son was like her. My son was immune to the things of the world. He was raised set aside for God."

I will have to winnow all of this down, but probably the best way to do this is to write what comes and then pull out the stuff that's useful on Sundays to create a polished monologue of reasonable length. Plus, I can always add back in if the plays goes in a different direction.