Magnificat... And Happy Christmas...

                                  The Recently Discovered Photo of Mary (Before Becoming Mother of Jesus)

​Admittedly, such a photographic discovery would involve a humungous conspiracy of silence, for better than eighteen hundred years: but hey, if there can still be flat-earthers, and Obama can be the mother of every right-wing conspiracy... Okay... I understand your certain rejection of this being an actual photo of Mary, but what if? Doesn't she look like someone who could have so boldly proclaimed her Magnificat? (St. Luke 1: 46-55)

​And Mary said, My soul magnifies the Lord... According to the American Heritage Dictionary, to magnify is to make greater in size, extent, or effect; enlarge... to cause to appear greater or more important... or to glorify or praise... I think it pretty obvious that all Christians regard the glorify or praise angle to be the only acceptable interpretation of these words of Mary... Okay, again... I will accept the pregnant audacity to think that Mary in fact made the Divine Beloved greater, that she enlarged the Self-Aware Universe... the same way that we do whenever we live our lives in honesty and truth, integrity and justice, and for others first and ourselves only last... 

​And Mary said, he has scattered the proud... he has put down the mighty from their seats and lifted up the humble... he has filled the hungry and dismissed the rich... Now look back to the photo: doesn't she look like someone who could and would! have said these words? Yeah, that's a photo of Mary alright! These words could not have possibly come from the mouth of a woman meek and mild! They could not have been said by someone fragile as a testicle! They came from a woman who could take the pounding that life would give her and still be a one who stood up, looked power in the eye, and enlarged the vision of those around her by enlarging their vision of the Divine! The rich, the privileged, the powerful, the oppressor, and the violent had no truck with the Divine!

Mary's words are an all-time prophetic utterance: if you want to build your sacred life, Mary is telling you where to stand: I, you, we have to stand for the values that she imbued her son with: simple living, sharing everything in community, social justice, nonviolence, reverence for nature and the natural, and male / female equality... You don't believe me? Well, read on from where we started in Luke's gospel... read on into Luke 6: 20-46... 

​He lifted up his eyes on his disciples and said... Blessed are you poor... Woe to you, rich men!... Love your enemies... Just as you want men to do to you, do to them likewise...Be therefore merciful... Judge not... Give, and it will be given to you... And lastly, Why do you call me, My Lord, My Lord, and do not do what I say? Whoa! Why doesn't this scare the shit out of all the culturally "proper" Christians who are comfortable with salvation, but who hate liberation? Who think that America -- or any nation -- can be "great" and still be sexist, racist, nationalist, profiteers before every other consideration, and purveyors of violence? 

​Obviously, there are Christians who strive for identification with the Christ of the Gospels, and not necessarily with the Christ of the Christians: build your sacred life with the first and welcome those with similar convictions but who are on differing paths (appearance-wise)... the world needs, and is waiting for, an up-rising of Radical-to-the-roots Faith Communities: it's our turn to Magnify the Beauty and Justice of the Beloved!

​                                         And Here Is Another Photo of Mary (Mother of the Liberating Christ)