Christmas is a challenging time for many of us. This year, it’s not just Christmas that offers its challenges – it’s the entirety of the last two years.
Food prices are skyrocketing, rents are being raised, the job market is tight, and COVID just circled back on some “per my last email” bullshit. We collectively endure the birthing pangs of a society searching for structural change.
It feels different this year. Like we might all be longing to glimpse a modicum of hope, happiness, joy, or peace. We are exhausted in our journies yet determined to be among those who continue to make real the world we know possible even when it seems improbable.
Traditions tell of a woman who, too, found herself exhausted in the journey. Quite literally wishing herself dead. Like us, she belonged to a society on the cusp of something new. Yet, in her grew the hope of brighter, more just, and equitable days.
The book of Luke tells us that “In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world[…] And everyone went to their town to register […] While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born […]”
Exhausted, unaccepted by her community, and alone, it’s here, without Joseph, that the Qur’an tells of this Maryam for whom,
[…] the pains of labor drove her to the trunk of a palm tree. She cried, ‘Alas! I wish I had died before this, and was a thing long forgotten!’ So a voice reassured her from below her, ‘Do not grieve! Your Lord has provided a stream at your feet. And shake the trunk of this palm tree towards you, it will drop fresh, ripe dates upon you. So eat and drink, and put your heart at ease’ – Surah Maryam 23-26
This year, more than ever, I feel like the Mary of this amalgamated story. Tired, like I don’t quite fit, often alone, and yet pregnant with a piece of the hope for a changing world. A world I know, however improbable, is worth the struggle ahead. So in this season, wherever you find yourself. I pray you too – tired from your journey, hope growing within – eat, drink, and put your heart at ease.