On Gaudete Sunday – the third week in Advent when we are invited to rejoice (“gaudete” in Latin) – we think about Mary and her Magnificat and the scandal of teenage motherhood and we light a pink candle and I think about this gem of a poem by James Wright called “Trouble”:
Leering across Pearl Street,
Crum Anderson yipped:
“Hey Pugh!
I see your sister
Been rid bareback.
She swallow a watermelon?
Fred Gordon! Fred Gordon! Fred Gordon!”
Wayya mean? She can get fat, can’t she?”
Fat? Willow and lonesome Roberta, running
Alone down Pearl Street in the rain the last time
I ever saw her, smiling a smile
Crum Anderson will never know,
Wondering at her body.
Sixteen years, and
All that time she thought she was nothing
But skin and bones.
December 10, 2011 at 8:24 am
Thanks you. However assuming that consequences were somewhat similar may be a far cry from the reality of this event and period of time in Mary’s day. Even “trouble” on the street carried consequences as we see, today, in the stoning of women. Intervening, today, is a far cry from who God sent for the purpose of the coming of the Kingdom into the world. When word did get out, the powers-at-be sent out a work-order to kill her child. In other words, choices have consequences, as do metaphors of good intentions