Shattered

Have you ever had an image in your mind of someone and then that image is changed for you in an instance? Like this time of year lots of little boys and girls believe in Santa and all to often when they least expect it they find out the big man in the red suit isn't real and that their parents have bought all of those toys all along.

I am still reading Mary, A Flesh - and - Blood Biography of the The Virgin Mother by Lesley Hazleton. As I have stated in previous post most of this book is taken from Ms. Hazleton's opinion, in no way does she know the complete truth about Mary's life, but she has done lots of research on the time period that Mary lived. She even lived in Jerusalem for 13 years. Now I am not calling her an expert by any means but obviously if this is a very talented author than she did a lot of research and feels confident enough to dispel some myths and even lay a little more ground work on Mary's background before, during and even after Jesus time on the earth.

(If you don't want your image of Mary to be changed even a little please I would advise you not to read on.)

I titled this "Shattered" because in Part Two: Her Womb, the author goes on to explain just how Mary became pregnant. Of course we have all heard the story of the virgin birth and she goes on to explain that even today Middle Eastern culture does not classify how or if a woman's hymen is "disturb" to be her virginity. Some women if due to rape or obviously unprotected sex and they had never been married, would still be considered a virgin. The word really meant nothing and the true status of Mary's virginity could obviously been lost in translation as the Bible was translated hundreds of time before it became the official format that we have today.

Now I am not saying that Mary was out there messing around willy-nilly, but bear with me, what if something "happened" to Mary and God saw favor with her and her unborn child. That is what I mean by shattered. Up to this point I was rather enjoying this book, but with Ms. Hazleton pointing out this very fact that women were really looked up on not much higher than a dog in the lineage of status and if she was all alone at one point she could have been mistreated. Which thus far brings up another point she still said yes, when even back then there were any number of ways to terminate a pregnancy and it is believed that happened quite regularly, even more so than by today's standards.

Lesley does try to paint even another scenario that during times of famine and great debt daughters would be sold or given to their local temples or who ever the family might be indebted to and as we have all seen recently in the news a young girl can be easily persuaded into almost anything if they believe the person has the power and authority over them.

But also there is the third option of what about Joseph, what if he truly is the biological father and it is a case similar to Mary's cousin Elizabeth and her husband was struck mute when he questioned God's intentions for Elizabeth being pregnant at such an age and by similar I mean that Gabriel visited with Joseph before Mary actually became pregnant and to lay out the ground work as to how Jesus would be raised and always trust his dreams for his family; i.e. move to Egypt because of Herod.

I personally like to believe the case for Joseph if I had to choose but my heart also wants to have faith that God and Mary were the only true parents. But as Ms. Hazleton states at the end of Part Two: Her Womb:
Without Joseph, nothing would be different. Without Maryam, everything would. It was Maryam who chose her son, Maryam who gave birth to him, Maryam who nursed him and raised him and taught him all she new. Maryam, be-ezrat ha-shem, (with God's Help).

Age Is Just A Number, Right?

As I continue to read the book Mary, A Flesh and Blood Biography of the Virgin Mother, by Lesley Hazleton, there is a passage that talks about her age, which as we all know is 13. We are always reminded of that when we hear or even think about the Nativity Scene. When most of us think about the age of thirteen we remember thinking we are no longer children we are finally teenagers and that maybe the adults will start taking us a little more seriously and now days it means that we transition from elementary school to either middle school or junior high, where we get to be cool and have lockers, maybe and we don't have to sit in the same class all the time because we now move around from class to class. I remember that was about the time if you hadn't had it yet the dreaded "talk" was about to happen either between you and your parents or the school was going to tell you about S-E-X. But in Mary's time they didn't keep track of what number your age was for your maturity, your maturity was kept track of by what you could physically and possibly mentally do; i.e. herd livestock, plow a field, harvest crops, carry water from the well. Once you started being able to do those things then society started telling you that you were old enough to do other things like get married and start a family of your own, which is what happened to Mary.

Lesley Hazleton, the author, points out that really most people are appalled by the fact that Mary was 13, because in our western or modern day way of thinking she is still kind of a kid, but really back then and even in some of today's cultures once you reach the age of menstruation you are an adult and it is time to get married, and really even by that age given such a close knitness of the families most girls have helped take care of younger siblings and cousins, so by that age they pretty much knew it all or if they had the attitude that most of us had at that age, thought we knew it all. But also that age was almost considered middle age, due to the medical and living conditions most people wouldn't really live much past their 20s if they even made it that far. 1 stillborn per 5 births, 1 in 10 lived to see their first year, a third of all children even lived to see 5 and less than half saw adolescents. Then once you reached the childbearing ages it was almost as bad 1 out of 3 mothers died during labor or shortly there after. And even then if they lived there was the risk of infection that could possibly keep them from bearing any more. Here is where I do kind of disagree with Ms. Hazleton a bit, she believes that Mary probably did not have the four brothers and an unstated number of sisters that are mentioned in Matthew 12:46-47 because that was really unheard of; that most of those "siblings" were probably 1st cousins because everybody raised everybody else's children, but I feel that God rewarded Mary for raising his son that he blessed her with as many children as she could bear after all one of his command was "to be fruitful and multiply."

But anyways because life was so short 13 was not really that young after all. Given the time frame at 13 you could be a mother, by your mid to late twenties, you were a grandmother, in your forties a great-grandmother, and if you lived to be in your late-50s maybe a great-great-grandmother, you truly were a matriarch of your family, every one would be coming to you for your blessing and guidance. Heck a favorite toast that is still said today is "to hundred and twenty", of course no one really lives to be that long but to live to be 100 is one thing but to truly have been blessed and multiplied you would go the extra 20 to see maybe 5 to 6 generations.

As I reach another milestone this next year (I turn 30) I have sat and pondered all that I have seen and even done in my short time. Age doesn't really bother me sometimes I have to remind myself what age I really am by doing the math with the calendar if you know what I mean. But sometimes thinking about what I have maybe missed out on does. By this age I had imagined myself and even of course Daniel too, cause his birthday is before mine depending on when you are reading this it is this coming Sunday, December 27, but I naturally thought I would have my family life settled: 2 maybe 3 kids, a nice house that was always full of laughter, love, friends and family but as always happens life gets in the way and I probably didn't always have the willingness in my heart to go the way God had laid out for me, but thank goodness for modern medicine that I have the next 30+ years to see where I went wrong and get back to where I need to be.

So here is to hundred and twenty!!!

Mary, Mother of Jesus

The book is fiction. But the author, Lesley Hazelton, has painstakingly tried to find out as much truth about Mary, or Maryam, as can be found. Not a lot is written about Mary after Acts 1:14, when she was in the upper room with the disciples. Of course there are the written accounts in the Gospels and about Jesus’ conception and birth and even how he was raised, but really beyond all of that we don’t know much more about Mary’s life before and after Jesus. Lesley had always pondered what became of Mary and really after a night of discussion at Titus 2 I had some questions too. So on one of my recent trips to the library I did a little browsing and stumbled upon Mary, A Flesh-and-Blood Biography of The Virgin Mother.

In the Introduction Lesley explains why she will be calling her Maryam, it is the more accurate name and spelling. Also the author explains how she has put some of her story together. Obviously since there really isn’t much recorded history written down to do a thorough biography, but Lesley was able to do a lot of research about the time frame that Maryam would have been a live and can kind of piece together what life would have been like during her time on this earth. And also Lesley explains why she wanted to right this book.

The first thing that jumped out at me was in the first pages of the first chapter; actually it was more accurately within the first few paragraphs:
The air is fresh outside. A coating of dew makes everything sparkles in the half-light. She pauses a moment to breathe deep, automatically checking the sky. The direction of the wind, the color of the sunrise, mist down in the valley or clouds on the horizon – any or all of these will determine which way she takes the herd. The decision is hers. (emphasis mine).
The paragraph goes on to talk about the animals and describes the bumps, bruises, and scratches that come along with caring for these animals, but the phrase I really like was “The decision is hers” Like everything else the decision was always hers, yes granted God could have picked another lowly servant girl to give birth to Jesus but he didn’t he chose Mary and instead of telling her that he had impregnated her with his child the scripture leads you to believe in Luke 1:35-37 that Gabriel came down and told Maryam God’s plan and it wasn’t until she said "I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered. "May it be to me as you have said," that the conception actually took place. Now I am of the mindset that if Maryam had argued or asked that she not be the one to handle this burden than God would have moved on or maybe given her some more time because God knew what would become of Maryam’s child and the heartbreak that she would endure. THANK GOODNESS she did decide for as we all know the rest is history.

I am going to obviously going to continue reading this book and as I have new revelations I will share as much or as little as I can.