My soul praises the greatness of the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
because he has looked with favor
on the humble condition of his servant.
Luke 1: 46-48
I’m sure you’ve heard of the highly sensitive person, and I know you’ve heard of people who have anxiety. I am both. God gave me a two for one when he knit me together wonderfully and fearfully in my mother’s womb.
This combination makes for an intense human being. I am a volcano of a woman. Take Hadley’s 16th birthday, for example. The day was golden. The whole world it seemed smelled of autumn leaves tanned by a harvest sun. We had pumpkin pancakes and blueberries for breakfast. There was hot chocolate topped with foamed milk and a dash of cinnamon. There were presents and soccer and friends and yes, Hadley did some driving.
I was fine for all of it. Grateful. Happy. But then it got to be 10 at night, and I had reached my maximum interaction limit, and my inner recluse that at times presents itself as Voldemort was awake, and needy.
Jesse, Hadley, and I were at the dining room table talking about something benign – the week ahead, football, Taylor Swift’s new album – and I snapped.
“I need some down time,” I said, startling both of them, and me too. It came out like vomit.
This is much different than the almost 25 line poem of praise Mary says in the first chapter of Luke.
Her soul praises, and her spirit rejoices in God. This is a woman in the first trimester of pregnancy. A woman – a girl, really – who found out from an angel that she would be with child soon. And not just any child, but the Lord’s child – the one whose kingdom will have no end; the one who will give his entire soul and spirit to save us all from ourselves.
This is what’s going on with Mary when she praises God. And that’s just the opening lines. It’s actually the second part of the poem that is most baffling. She tells of what God has done, and not what God will do:
- Scattered the proud
- Toppled the mighty
- Exalted the lowly
- Satisfied the hungry
Surely Mary had questions. Surely she had fears. Surely she was sick to her stomach but her soul and spirit call out to God because of what God has done; not what will be done. Here, Mary is deepening her faith in God by looking to the past.
Like Eve, Mary is a role model for me, and I like to pretend that she too, was a highly sensitive and anxious person because she gives me an idea of what to do when I’m overwhelmed and overstimulated and full of doubt: consider and rejoice in what God has already done.
I wonder if this is what it means to ponder and treasure, as it says in Luke 2:19. I imagine Mary holding her baby and attending to all that had just happened. Here again, surely she had questions, surely she had doubts, surely she was in pain: but her soul and her spirit rejoiced in what God had done.
Note too, that Mary’s praise at the end of Luke’s first chapter is a poem. This could’ve been written in paragraph form, but her words take the shape of poetry, and I think that is the second part of the call: Praise God for what’s been done, and create with what God has given you.
Because if we believe God created us in God’s image, and God is a Creator, than our soul, our spirit, our make-up – highly sensitive, anxious, silly, confident, depressed, curious, all of who we are – is called to create from what we’ve been given. We are what God has done.
Lately, I’ve been practicing the Daily Examen. It is similar to “The Day in the Life” you might see on social media, or on blogs, but it has an intentional spiritual slant. I’ve been writing responses at the end of my work day, just before I go home. I do it then, not because my day is over, but because that is the time I begin to grow anxious: the evening will move quickly with school and sports and dinner and prep for the next day, and I know I will need to move at a pace that will cause me to return to a more monstrous side. The Daily Examen offers me a chance to attend to and give thanks for what God’s done.
Just like Mary.
This is a part of a 4-week Advent Workshop I will be leading at my church. If you’re in the area, come join us. (I think it might be on YouTube as well.) Also, if you’re interested in learning more about the Daily Examen, Jessica Hooten Wilson writes about this practice in her fabulous book that everyone ought to be reading, The Scandal of Holiness: Renewing Your Imagination in the Company of Literary Saints.
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