Consent

Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” (Luke 1.38)

The longer I sat with Denise Levertov’s poem, “Annunciation”, the more I kept thinking, “It even looks like Advent.” Seen through a bird’s-eye, it reflects all the unruliness of novice experience. It’s ragged and roaming in all the right ways, starting and stopping and backing up on itself, as if repeatedly having another go at trying to figure things out.

The entire poem is worth sitting with. (I’ve attached it at the end of the post.) Yet very early, it levels two sobering blows—one an observation, the other a question.

            But we are told of meek obedience. No one mentions courage.

                                    The engendering Spirit

            did not enter her without consent.

                                                            God waited.

            She was free

            to accept or to refuse, choice

            integral to humanness.

______________

            Aren’t there annunciations

            of one sort or another

            in most lives?

 

We can look at Mary with awe—and her story is unlike any in history. But its uniqueness begins with recognizing the sameness of her experience with our own. God offers all of us opportunities to accomplish great things and play unexpected roles in God’s plan. There are annunciations in our lives—callings that only we can fulfill. They aren’t burdens foisted upon us. They are announcements of what’s possible if we accept God’s calling, believe God’s promises, and consent to God’s will.

While we wait on God, God waits on us.

Post-Script: “Annunciation”

We know the scene: the room, variously furnished,

almost always a lectern, a book; always

the tall lily.

Arrived on solemn grandeur of great wings,

the angelic ambassador, standing or hovering,

whom she acknowledges a guest.

But we are told of meek obedience. No one mentions

courage.

The engendering Spirit

did not enter her without consent.

God waited.

She was free

to accept or to refuse, choice

integral to humanness.

________________________________

Aren’t there annunciations

of one sort or another

in most lives?

Some unwillingly

undertake great destinies,

enact them in sullen pride,

uncomprehending.

More often

those moments

    when roads of light and storm

    open from darkness in a man or woman,

are turned away from

in dread, in a wave of weakness, in despair

and with relief.

Ordinary lives continue.

God does not smite them.

But the gates close, the pathway vanishes.

________________________________

She had been a child who played, ate, slept

like any other child – but unlike others,

wept only for pity, laughed

in joy not triumph.

Compassion and intelligence

fused in her, indivisible.

Called to a destiny more momentous

than any in all of Time,

she did not quail,

      only asked a simple, ‘How can this be?’

and gravely, courteously,

took to heart the angel’s reply,

perceiving instantly

the astounding ministry she was offered:

to bear in her womb

Infinite weight and lightness; to carry

in hidden, finite inwardness

nine months of Eternity; to contain

in slender vase of being,

the sum of power – 

in narrow flesh,

the sum of light.

Then to bring to birth,

push out into air, a Man-child

needing, like any other, milk and love – 

but who was God.

This was the minute no one speaks of,

when she could still refuse.

A breath unbreathed,

    Spirit,

  suspended,

    waiting.

________________________________

She did not cry, “I cannot, I am not worthy,”

nor “I have not the strength.”

She did not submit with gritted teeth,

raging, coerced.

Bravest of all humans,

consent illumined her.

The room filled with its light,

the lily glowed in it,

    and the iridescent wings.

Consent,

    courage unparalleled,

opened her utterly.

Denise Levertove