conjectural navel gazing; jesus in lint form

First, a disclaimer: I'm not much of a Marianist. I don't dislike Mary, I'm just not particularly inspired by or about her.

But this thought did occur to me when I read your posting. Mary had been trained by her patriarchal culture all her life to be submissive to men. So her submitting to the will of God (whom her culture envisioned as male) upon the word of the angel (whom she apparently encountered in masculine form) was an extension of the training she had received all her life.

You, as an educated white guy in 20th- and now 21st-century America, have not been trained to submit to anyone or anything.

So, you're not starting from the same point Mary would have been. You may want to integrate that into your perspective on your success or failure, and your courage or cowardice.

Where I willpush your thoughts is that the masculine divines wh spoke to her in this passage were asking her to do something that would destroy her life and was in direct opposition to what the male authorities were saying about God and women.

Child out of wedlock? Joseph, as you know, would have been within his legal rights to deny her...so to would her father. Her courage had more, I believe, to do with her willingness to subvert the masculine hierarchy and to choose God in stead.

Honey, do you think that is news to me?

There's certainly precedent in the Old Testament/Torah for God asking human beings to subvert God's own rules. God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son, when God was also opposed to killing and certainly to murder within the family -- albeit that the Commandments weren't given till several generations later.

Of course I don't think it is news to you. But I think that your interpretation of Mary's cultural leanings are a bit heavy-handed. I don't see Mary as brainwashed (my word, not your'n)...but a risk taker, brave.

Well, originally I was trying to talk about you more than I was trying to talk about Mary. It seemed to me that you were being harder on yourself than was really justified.

But now I will note how common male underestimation of the degree to which women are under the thumb of patriarchy is.

Okay...How was I being hard on myself?

And, yes, I know the history as well as you do. I know the period. I know about pater familias and women as property. I know that the woman at the well likely struggled with an economic burden and not a romantic or sexual burden. Though, for women at the time, sex and money were tied closely. The same can be said for our times.

What I fail to understand is your need to assume that Mary completely caved to the pressures. What if she was a subversive? What if she was throwing off the weight of the patriarchy with her proclamation that the lowly would be lifted up? What if that is exactly what that means? I fear that your cultural interpretation would make that proclamation impossible for Mary...unless of course, I am not so brilliant after all...Heh.

Most likely.

Hmm...reread your original comment.

Interesting...I think that part of the problem is that I don't have a particularly masculine image of God...etc. Which is your point. I am not inclined to obey much of anyone. And this is likely the problem with our culture at large. Perhaps we have gone too far into the autonomous range of things.

It is impossible to obey God if God must first convince us somehow. Mary took no convincing. She simply recognised an angel and responded. We, in our time, are at a disadvantage.

Is this your point?

"your need to assume that Mary completely caved to the pressures" I'm not assuming anything of the kind, and it's generally a bad idea to assume you know what I might need.

A. I would say you know the history BETTER than I do. You spent much more significant educational time on it. But I expect that your education was at least as patriarchally based as mine was, and quite possibly more so, given its context.

B. Places in your original post where I perceived you being hard on yourself:
"I find her words, the Magnificat, an indictment on my life." [indict is a pretty strong word]
"I have yet to achieve such openness with God."
"Mary inspires me to try to live my life so that when an angel appears I not only recognize the moment for what it is...but can respond with something of her courage." [as if you found your own stock of courage lacking]

C. My point is, Mary lived as a female in a time and culture when females learned that the only option was to submit to what men told them to do -- sexually, economically, and in all other ways. And she lived, as you know, in a time and culture where God was presented as an exclusively masculine figure, as were God's servants, mortal and immortal. So, she would have had no experience of saying NO, or even HEY WAIT, LET'S THINK ABOUT THIS to any demand or question in a masculine voice, let alone one she perceived as divine. This is apart from or in addition to Mary's personal piety, which one cannot measure from this distance. You, without that lifetime's training in submission, have only your personal piety to rely on. Hence, your response will be different from the one recorded in the Bible and attributed to Mary.

D. And from your most recent comment, I want to respond to this: "It is impossible to obey God if God must first convince us somehow." I'm curious why you think this.