WOMAN TO WOMAN A Modern meditation on Mary, the Mother of Jesus By Loraine Mirchich
If valuables are set on a pedestal, they must be dusted once in a while.  If they are placed too high, they can neither be seen, nor appreciated.  My aim in writing this meditation is to view this treasure in a modern setting at my eye level.  Join me, regardless of your denomination, and dare to compare your own life to hers. Mary was her name, a pregnant, unwed teen-ager.  How many of us would say, thank God, that didn't happen to me.  She couldn't. The child she had conceived did not belong to Joseph, the man she was about to marry.   Mary could be pelted with rocks, killed, as punishment for her presumed infidelity.  No punishment is mentioned for unfaithful men.  I'm sure even then, women whispered "It's a mans world."  God intervened and Joseph married her, squelching the local gossip. In her final trimester, she was forced to travel by donkey to Bethlehem.  This was no trip to the local supermarket.  While pregnant, I have ridden five hours, in a car with good shocks and air conditioning.  My back ached, my bladder ached, and by the time we arrived, the only things not bothering me, were my cuticles. Many pictures portray Joseph as a much older man.  Mary was about fifteen.  Perhaps, the artists thought that by painting Joseph in this way, they might protect the idea of Mary's chastity.  I'm sure many of us know at least one sexy senior citizen of the male persuasion.  This was a chaste man by his own choice, not because of hormonal deficiencies.
						She delivered her child in a shelter for animals.  Giving birth in a taxi cab has to be more antiseptic and appealing to the modern mother.  Then, this veil of mystery surrounds the birth.  Perhaps, it embarrases the average male to think that Mary could have delivered naturally with suffering and blood and perspiration.  She was free from original sin.  Pain in childbirth is supposed to be a result of sin, but God did not spare her from the excruciating agony of seeing her Son crucified.  I would prefer multiple breech births rather than one crucifixion, thank you ! She must have breast fed Him, unless they had goatskin formula bags.  I'm sure that she cuddled Him to her breasts, signs of her femininity, so rarely portrayed in statues or pictures of her.
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