Another Chance….

Last week, my friend Helen offered a group of us gathered for an Advent retreat the gift of this painting by Fra Angelico that hangs in the Prado.  Of all the images of Mary in this moment, I find it the most astonishing and moving.

Off to the left, Adam and Eve are being led (gently, if one looks at the red-garbed angel there) out of Eden.  They are our progenitors of the many ways in which good intentions can go awry, and hearts broken, without our intent.  Perhaps, indeed, this is the main lesson of the Genesis story – not that Adam and Eve sinned through willfulness, but that they totally misunderstood the gift that was being offered.  They reached for knowledge, control, and power when they could have remained bathed in unconditional love.

We all know this story, of course, because it is the inevitable trajectory of each of our lives, and the arc of history.  We cannot grow without passing from bliss through our many efforts to master life, to grasp and cling, or to fend off the needs of others as we tend to our own, or to mistake our lower impulses for the higher ones, or to give our inner power away.  We only learn, sadly, when we find ourselves in the darkest wood, as Dante so eloquently described this journey.  We are cast out, but never abandoned; painfully, we are challenged to seek answers, higher truth and understanding.

We are told that God never leaves us, even in the dark times.  And we need to hear this, again and again and again.

Enter Mary.  She is being invited by the angel to affirm a journey of expanded consciousness that we know as the Christ event in history.  Jesus introduces a radically new idea of God and goodness that will rattled empires of received wisdom and power.  But this we know only in hindsight.  All that Mary knows is that she is being asked to give up her comfortable existence and step across an unknown threshold.

She holds back, rightly cautious.  Why her?  Can’t she go back to her stitching and her virtuous innocence, be passed over this once?

A very wise art teacher once said to me, “Trust the process.”  Later, a wise woman who has helped me with career decisions said to me, “Trust the process.”

Easy, when the stakes are low.  Much harder when one’s reputation, relationships, and life are on the line.

We are challenged to trust the process every day.  Can we open our arms and believe that we — that life, and history — can be given another chance, to grow, to flourish, to become wiser, deeper, more whole people?

In some ways, there is only one choice, once the question is raised.

The journey is always before us.  The journey IS the way.

Over and over again.

Blessings on this day.

 

 

 

 

The Annunciation
ANGELICO, FRA

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