William Penn Life, 1987 (22. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1987-12-01 / 12. szám
December 1987, William Penn Life, Page 3 The Waiting A family comes to terms with the impending birth of a child By Ida S. Barton Mary’s Father Joachim was tired. It had been a day such as no other he could recall, wrought with emotion. Yes, that was it — the emotions he had to cope with this day — that had tired him. It had begun with Mary. Mary the firstborn, who had confronted him before dawn, before he had even stretched himself to face the day. How could a man remain unwearied with a cajoling daughter by daybreak and a weeping wife by night? He had been embarrassed, but touched, when Mary stated her arrival at nubility to him. His eyes filmed even now. And he had involuntarily gone back in his mind to the never ending wonder of his first-born, a babe in Hannah’s arms. Just as swiftly he recalled how their wills had locked this morning as she pled with him to consider Joseph as a choice for a husband. From a babe in arms to a begating maid. And he must choose her a mate, along with Hannah, of course. Yes, Hannah, who had just fled upstairs, crying, she had flung herself from him upon hearing Mary had approached her father before her mother to consider her a husband. There was no consoling her. Joachim now stood outside waiting for the sobbing to cease, belching behind his hand. He recalled the supper of meat. Flesh was not often served in a man’s house as poor as his. Somehow, the family had enjoyed a meal of flesh midweek, instead of only on the Sabbath. Somehow, at Mary’s suggestion, the rabbi had been sought out for the ceremonial bleeding of the duck (a duck that seemed to be trying to resurrect itself now). Somehow this day, he had plodded down to the house of Jacob to ask Joseph to share the evening meal. The table talk had been good, too. History and politics and the never ending question of the promised coming of the Messiah. Joseph had a mature mind on all these matters. But, somehow, a new loom for Hannah had been ordered into the whole occasion. Somehow, Hannah’s objections to Joseph’s poverty were overruled. Somehow, between dawn and dusk, he had given away his first-born. Mary’s Mother Her breast ached as she watched her lovely daughter, robes billowing as she hurried to the well. Hannah sensed her eagerness to announce to the others that she had become nubile this day. Oh, if only she herself had been as happy when her own womanhood had overtaken her. But no, it was as if a bloody hand had smitten her in the night. And she had been only twelve — a rowdy scamp running with her brother Samuel into the hills or along the busy streets of Bethlehem, a small Judean town, no larger than Nazareth. The chambers and courtyards of the great inn near the gates teemed with travelers on their way to Hebron and coastal cities to the south, or making pilgrimages to nearby Jerusalem. Samuel and Hannah had both sensed a special privilege and boldness as natives of an area that reflected nearby Jerusalem’s glory. She and Samuel loved the clear days, when tending goats on the hillside, seeing the glint and dazzle of the city’s colonnades seep through the haze of its holy smoke. The ever-expected wind would send them whiffs of the meals the priests were forever cooking on their altars. Their jaws would water for meat, for it was scarce in their father’s house. Overnight, she was no longer a scamp, now her place was at home, spinning and learning of womanly things, cut off from being a child, her body ready to beget. With almost unseemly haste, her betrothal was accomplished; she was set forth with her new husband, Joachim, for the unknown hill of Galilee, and the shock of the marriage bed — an evil dream. She recalled her wet eyes, wet too many times at having to live with her husband’s family; wet now, so that the figure of Mary’s lithe body, with jug on head, blurred. Was the wind billowing her robes, or did she turn to wave? Hannah’s heart lurched, and she cried once more. Mary, Mary, will you be shocked? Will you be loved? Will your hand tremble when you put it into the hand of a man? Will you cry many years, many tears, before you leam, as your mother and father before you, that living together in peace and joy is not a matter of passions, but of patience? Would that yours be the lot of full-blown love from the beginning, the painful waiting avoided! But how can I arrange with your father that it be so? Mary, Mary, sweet flesh of my flesh, will you be ravaged, and your womb frozen because of it, even as I ’til I bore you, after long years of waiting for love? Nay, it must not happen to Mary as to all ordinary women. Mary In the whiplash of the moment after yielding to the command, Mary felt something leave her. She sensed an incalculable loss. But, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord,” she said. Again, for a flickering instant, she felt dismayed and bewildered. Joseph, my beloved? What of him? she thought. No answer came. Then, as the angel said, it happened. "No, Mother, I have not lain with any man,” said Mary to Hannah. The devils of doubt whipped and hissed through Hannah’s mind. Is she keeping secrets from you? Has she told her father before telling you? Is your sweet Mary sullied? Defiled? "I can’t believe it!” Hannah groaned. "Mother, there’s more to tell,” said Mary, reaching for her with a restraining hand, "and I fear it will be even harder for you to believe.” Later Mary sat huddled into herself. Joachim refrained from embracing her. His heart was sore for her. She seemed so stricken and lost. How often in her girlhood had he comforted her, but now it did not seem right to touch her. Was Jahveh estranging him from his first-born? "Have I ever failed to believe you? Little Mary, tell me.” "No, Father, but I’m not a little girl anymore. I am going to have a baby, but I have not sinned.” "Daughter,” Joachim blurted quickly, "you and Joseph are publicly pledged. You are betrothed.” But he was dismayed and shaken at the grievous wrong to Hannah and himself. His lips moved several times before he could go on. "But Mary, if it be true, as your mother said, you claim you bear a holy child ... if this is not just another dream such as any true daughter of Israel commonly dreams, then Mary, God has truly deemed that the time has come. The Lord himself has promised. Surely the time is upon us. All the sages and peers and scholars I’ve spoken with are convinced of it.” Unable to continue, his voice broke, remembering the sense of divine will that haunted him from her infancy, her entire childhood’s queenliness and mystery. Mary spoke brodenly. The nearby meadow grasses whispered also, and the dry palms joined the sleepy morning doves in the same whisper. From this hush, tears glinting through closed lids, Mary continued. "I know the Holy One overshadowed me — just how, I do not know. I know it was as God’s own angel said it would be. I was uplifted and felt myself in a holy bliss. It is indescribable. I only wish that all of humanity would one day have the privilege of experiencing and knowing God’s Holy Spirit.”
