In some sense, I am a planner. Over the years, I have planned vacations by doing research, booking excursions, and creating itineraries. Most times that has made for a very pleasant and often predictable trip. What is exhilarating I have found, though, are the in-between spaces that I build into the vacation where nothing is planned. Not only does this provide a breathing or resting space between scheduled time, but it also lays open the field for the possibility of discovering or coming across something wonderful and totally unexpected. It’s the creative, or re-creative, space wherein something random can occur. It requires flexibility, openness and sometimes patience. But, I must say that there is always something out there by way of new experiences and wonderful manifestations of the astonishing! Literally, we stumble upon epiphany!
I remember in my first year in the seminary in Perryville, MO, we had a week long directed retreat. During the retreat, I was led to Luke’s gospel concerning Mary’s visit with her cousin Elizabeth (LK 1: 39-56). I recall being struck by how Mary simply set out and travelled to the hill country in haste. As I walked along with her on this journey during my retreat, I realized that she had no idea what she was going to do. Here, she was pregnant and now visiting her cousin, who was also pregnant. The many years between the cousins marked a gap of mystery that revealed itself in the wondrous miracle of both pregnancies – a teenage virgin and an elderly woman beyond the years of fertility. Mary was going to visit Elizabeth.
Mary’s greeting to Elizabeth as she entered the house sparked off a magnificent prayer of glorious love, servanthood and at once social justice (Mercy). The prophet, Zephaniah (ZEP 3: 14-18A), describes what this visitation must have been like…
“Shout for joy, O daughter Zion! Sing joyfully, O Israel! Be glad and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem!
The LORD, your God, is in your midst, a mighty savior; He will rejoice over you with gladness, and renew you in his love, He will sing joyfully because of you, as one sings at festivals.”
It was quite a prayerful experience to place myself in that setting with Mary and Elizabeth during the retreat experience. It was also actually a bit unsettling. Their shared greeting was one of the most exquisite and spiritual intimations imaginable. Elizabeth, so overwhelmed by the Presence of God within her cousin felt both humbled and elated! She asks “why” she was honored by this visit, but at the same time realized and rejoiced in the trust of this young girl to receive this tremendous GIFT – this Visit!
And then we hear the very heart of the VISIT! Mary, humbly yet confidently proclaims what her visit is about. It’s really not her visit at all. It’s The Visit….that magnifies the Lord, i.e., reveals the depth of Love that God visits upon us, not from afar, but from within…
“He has mercy on those who fear him in every generation. He has shown the strength of his arm, he has scattered the proud in their conceit. He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty. He has come to the help of his servant Israel for he has remembered his promise of mercy, the promise he made to our fathers, to Abraham and his children for ever.”
This is the unexpected gap in the plan! The breathing space between our everyday (or vacation) life events suddenly turns upside down and fractures our sight so that we are not sure what it is we are experiencing.
What could this mean? That God’s strength is IN the weak, that lowliness is height, and that we must BE hungry in order to receive good things? What is the emptiness in richness? What is this throne from which the mighty are cast down? No wonder this Hymn was suppressed at times in the history of the Church. It really does not get any more radical than this. And the idea that it is being proclaimed by a young pregnant teenage Jewish girl radicalizes the scene to an exponential degree!
In the midst of the almost effrontery of this proclamation, the contextual theme seems to be the fulfilled promise of mercy that God has made to us, to all of us! The question is how do we get our hearts and minds open enough to really hear and respond to this. What a VISIT! God is here!
I fondly remember how my Aunt Linda, who died of cancer several years ago, used to talk about and enjoy more than anything else – Visiting. For her, visiting was a presence, a being with, talking and sharing in whatever way that just happened. No plans, just letting it flow. Those times with her are cherished and have enhanced my own understanding of the power of just being with someone, listening, talking perhaps, laughing, crying… all of it. And more recently, this flowing mercy of the VISIT impacted me at even deeper level as I visited with my own mother as she prepared for her own final journey into mercy. Those moments of joyful and painful experiences shared truly were divine/human relationship. I can say honestly that there has been nothing deeper or more transformative than these Visits in my experience of life.
So, is this what the Visit is about? A God simply BEING with us, in a way that calls everything eventually into account, turning around and upside down preconceived notions about life and security. It seems a dangerous space, in a way…this gap that we are called to hold open for God’s Presence to be realized. Mary has taught me much about this, as has Linda, Mama, and many others. I believe it’s about Trust that has the possibility of transforming everything into a Visit of Mercy!
Peace
Thomas
Note on the photos: taken in Montana at the Cathedral of St Helena after a delayed return from Glacier National Park. At the Guadalupe alcove in the Cathedral I commended my Mom, Judy, to her VISIT!
(originally published May 31, 2016)