The Slow Way: Imagining the Saints, Undoing the Knots
Why we need beautiful images of the faithful who have gone before us. And what that friendship beyond the veil might mean for us and our knotted lives.
Last weekend I traveled to meet Chris part-way through his work trip in Rome. (Thanks, Mom, for watching the kids!) We’d been there once before together, eleven years ago. That time we saw all the big things—the Colosseum, the Vatican, the Pantheon. This time was slower: smaller art museums, more shopping. Lots of sitting and biking, eating and walking.
On the first of our three nights, we popped into a small collection of artisan clothing and jewelry creators, a flea market of sorts. There was the woman who sold unused designer sunglasses from the eighties and nineties, the vintage record monger, the funky jewelry designer. And, the woman who was making a statement with her jackets—vintage windbreakers and leather bombers and jean jackets—some of which she had painted “this is not Gucci” across the back in horror-movie-slasher font. And some with backs covered in a full image of Mary and her sacred heart. Chris found the Mary jacket first. “You have to get this,” he said. I have an unlikely collection of Marys in my life: the bracelet I bought thirteen years ago made from an old key and a small painted Holy Mother and Child. (I wear it ceremonially whenever I want to honor women or I’m proud of my kids and figure I should bless my own mothering.) There's the icon Chris gave me a few years back, where the model of Christ in the lap of Mother Mary has obvious features of Down syndrome. There’s my Our Lady of Guatelupe etched in gold and framed in the guest room, the Mary keeping me company in the kitchen via tea towel. And, of course, I wake up to a large Ivanka Demchuk icon of young Mary receiving the angel, gold dust flying all around her.
Actually, now that I write it out, I think I might have a significant attachment to Mary, even though I’ve never been one to think of my love for certain saints in terms of prayer. I think of them as friends, close by to my dad and grandparents and all the secret saints never noticed but just as necessary to the dream of God in the world, now part of the great crowd of witnesses cheering us beyond the thin places. In Amber Haines’ and Seth Haines’ new collaborative book, The Deep Down Things, they share, among other stories, how Amber’s spiritual abuse (and subsequent silencing) throughout her pursuit of the Anglican priesthood, were part of their journey to the Catholic Church. Their story—and their shared abilities to write gorgeous prose—is interlaced with spiritual practices for those facing down their own dark seasons, those learning to undo the inner knots that life has taught us to carry with us, along with those knots passed down from generation to generation.
Amber has found solace in Mary, learning to go to her as a gentle and loving presence, allowing herself to be mothered by the mother of Jesus. “It stands to reason,” Amber writes, “that when I was considering Catholicism, Our Lady—Mary, the mother of Christ—gave me the most trouble. Is she really our mother? Did Jesus really mean for all of us when he told St. John in the midst of his passion to behold her as mother? It was a sweet idea, and that’s how she stayed with me: a sweet idea of a meek mother who prays for us along with all the other saints.”
But something happens for Amber as she begins to seek healing from the pain of not only her spiritual abuse, but the layers of inherited and lived pain that she’s spent most of her adulthood pushing past, she comes to a conclusion that she needs to be mothered.
I bought that jacket in Rome with its elaborate and in-your-face Mary sown right on the backside with glittery golden thread, imagining that its artist probably intended her Mary to live ironically on the back of those who wear her clothes, making a statement about religion, or about the Church. Or maybe the artist simply thinks Mary is beautiful, and she chose her as an image of light. Or maybe it doesn’t matter why those of us who purchase her jackets wear Mary’s face and her wide open, glittered heart on our backs. The next morning Chris and I toured the Galleria Borghese, which hosts six of Caravaggio’s paintings, the largest collection of his works anywhere. I have loved Carovaggio for almost twenty years since I first discovered his grotesque and wonderful “The Incredulity of St. Thomas,” in which Thomas’s finger goes way too far into Jesus’s skin to be church-appropriate. Caravaggio pushed a lot of boundaries of what is church-appropriate in his religious works. His paintings are simultaneously playful and dark and full of meaning that can’t easily be parsed out. So seeing his giant painting “Madonna and Child with St. Anne” in which Mary, Mother of Jesus holds her foot out above the neck of the snake, her toddler son’s foot on top of hers, ready to destroy it and the bitter story of sin that has plagued humanity since the snake deceived the first humans in the garden, her mother Anna looking on approvingly, I am struck by the depth of Mother Mary, and what it means to mother, that verb we too often only use as a noun. (An idea clarified for me by Erin Lane’s beautiful book on the topic.) In this painting Mary is mothered as she mothers, held up by the approval of her mom, as she guides her son to his ultimate purpose. Caravaggio was making the case that Jesus wasn’t able to smash the head of the snake (aka evil) without Mary’s help. She was necessary. She taught him to be himself. I love so many things about this painting, but especially that as Mary transforms the world through her mothering, she needs her own mom there to stand right beside her telling her she’s doing it right.
“I didn’t ask myself until my forties if I could ever let someone mother me,” Amber writes. “I was a full grown woman who’d mothered boys and grown men alike before I ever asked God to help me allow myself such pleasure. I prayed a half-side prayer that if Mary really was my mother, would she show herself to me.” This prayer awakens something in Amber that gives her a pathway toward the undoing of her knots.
“If the faithful saints cheer for us as we run the race, as Hebrews 12:1-11 describes, then their cheers are living prayer, and Mary is Queen Mother in the midst of them.”
I have never gone to the saints for prayer. I don’t think of them as sacred partners in that way, I suppose. Nor do I think of the divine solely as masculine. (Perhaps this has helped me find my need for sacred mothering in the presence of God?) But I felt a tender pull toward Amber’s description of finding that when she asks Mary to pray for her, she is “more able to name the knots” of her life, “which go quickly to her Son. And naming those knots and feeling them loosen up makes space for the love of God to come into those darker places and bring something like conversion.”
Amber calls her “Mary, Undoer of Knots.” And I like that.
Mary has always been to me a friend, her presence on my bracelet or beside my writing desk a reminder of the way I want to live—like the woman whose single poem in Luke, chapter 1 is filled with the story of her people, hope, and with reminders of the cause of justice on this earth, a woman who knows her role and leans into it, a woman who knows the power of words, who carries The Word into existence.
But maybe I’ll start calling her the Undoer of Knots as well, wearing my Mary jacket (mostly?) unironically, and holding to the courage that young Galilean girl must have shown when she was picked above all others to show up bravely as herself.
And, like Amber, I’ll ask myself in prayer how I need to be mothered, offering up my knots, believing that their detangling is of great and powerful value.
A Slow Practice
One of the first contemplative practices I ever learned was sacred looking, also known as Visio Divina. In sacred looking, we use our sense of sight and our natural tendency toward visual beauty to come into the presence of God. Henri Nouwen’s book Behold The Beauty of the Lord was a simple guide for my practice of this kind of prayer.
Visio Divina was originally a practice of gazing on icons, those images of the divine and the saints that have been copied and passed down since the beginning of Christianity. I have found that all kinds of images can be a way into the presence of Love.
Here’s one way to practice. Find a piece of art that speaks to you, or start here, with that Ivanka Demchuk icon or Caravaggio’s “Madonna and Child with St. Anne.” Set a timer for 5, 10, or 15 minutes, and make sure you don’t have other distractions around you.
As you stare at the image, allow your eyes to stay with the first thing you notice. Keep your attention on that area of the image, trying not to wander onto the rest. Allow yourself to gaze on that particular part of the image, breathing deeply for a minute.
When you’re ready let yourself bring the rest of the image into focus, as a whole. Keep this up for another minute or so.
Move on to asking yourself questions about what you see and how you’re responding to it:
What emotions are coming to the surface?
Does this image evoke any sorrows, struggles, joys in your own life?
Does this image lead you to specific words you want to pray? If so, spend some time praying through them. If you have a journal, you might want to write your words, ideas, or struggles down.
End with silence, focusing on your breath.
A Response to the Violence in Israel and Palestine:
This week I’ve shared a bit about my own processing of the violence done against Israel by Hamas and war crimes perpetrated against Palestinians by Israel in response. You can read that here and here.
Peacemaking requires action. If you are unsure how to respond to what you see and hear on the news, here are a few places to start.
A few days before the Al-Ahli Anglican Hospital in Gaza City was bombed, killing hundreds of people, my friend Jeff Chu shared about its need for funding. We can still give to their mission and the care of those suffering. Donate here.
If you don’t know where to start, follow the advice of The Telos Group. They have a script written to help us communicate our desire to our congressional representatives for a US backed cease fire in the region.
This document from an organization called Locally Led is full of links of informative articles, organizations to follow, and voices to trust when following the events in Israel and Palestine. I found it very helpful.
One more thing! If you didn’t click the link yet for The Deep Down Things by Amber and Seth Haines, find it here. It’s worth your time and support.
I just finished The Deep Down Things and really found it to be a meaningful read. I identified with Ambers emotional crisis, and am always relieved to see that other strong, functioning, women can be knocked off their feet, requiring a good chunk of time to recover and find hope again. I refer to my similar episode as “ The great fall of 2021”.
I tend to think that there is a “ correct way” to be faithful ( can you say all or nothing thinking) and Micah, your open attitude around Mary is beautiful.. Your ways of living out your faith,and methods of prayer /contemplation are very inspirational.
I have followed you since the early days when you had your first baby. I am also an autism mom and can identify with you on multiple levels. Thank you for being a part of my faith journey and sharing yourself through your writing.
Nancy
Such a lovely read, Micha! Mary, undoer of knots will stay with me.