At church today the sermon was about Mary’s role in the salvation journey. The idea being that her willingness to trust God, and then verbally accept his will, was the first step to Jesus being born, and ultimately dying for our salvation. Another important moment along the way was her role in changing the water to wine at the wedding at Cana. This has always been one of my favorite passages in the Bible. I can picture the scene. Jesus is still a young adult. He brings his buddies to a wedding. He hasn’t started his public ministry – in fact we know very little about him to this point. He’s probably having a few cocktails, enjoying himself. Then his mom comes up and tells him the host has run out of wine. And his response is classic millennial, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” But she knows it’s time for him to go public, and prompts Jesus to perform his first recorded miracle with four simple words spoken to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” Jesus then changes the water to wine, and turns out it’s the best stuff ever tasted. Go figure.
I’ve always had an interesting relationship with Mary. Growing up Catholic, the church gives her a pretty prominent role. Other denominations would say too prominent. I’ve heard on more than one occasion that Catholics worship Mary. That’s not true, but I do get where some of that comes from.
I grew up thinking she was pretty cool. The miracles at Fatima. Our Lady of Guadeloupe. Stories that I didn’t really know or understand (in fact, I just Googled them now) but nonetheless were important cogs to my belief structure. My home church was Assumption (for the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary). I spent many years there as an altar boy. I remember August 15th being an important day, and not just because Mom might go down to Little Italy and bring back some lemon ice that we weren’t allowed to eat. I had a plastic rosary that I would pray often, and I know that there were times that I felt its protection. There was even a Mary statue from the church that got passed around — complete with supernatural powers that need only be absorbed by eager believers. Never did much for me, except weird me out.
I’m not here to discount God’s physical presence in this world. I’ve had my own supernatural encounters — both good and evil — that have cemented beyond a shadow of a doubt my Christian faith. No, what I struggle with is the whole concept of Mary. Of a mother, or truthfully, any woman in general. As Our Lady of Guadeloupe has been alleged to say, “Am I not here, I who am your mother?” Gosh, I sure hope not. Cause she was a raging bitch.
And there, obviously, is the disconnect. The notion that any mother figure, any woman, can be sweet and pure and loving. In my personal experience, nothing could be further from the truth. How am I supposed to view things through a different lens?
Mom was crazy, but she is but one infinitesimally small sample size of females on this planet. I can’t paint all women with the same broad brush. That is the challenge of all abuse victims — to weed out those who are of the same ilk as the abuser, while accepting that the vast majority are of a far different breed. For the most part, I’ve been comically bad at differentiating between these two very distinct categories. It’s ridiculous to boil them down to two categories — there are loads of grey area in between. Sadly, for the most part, I have chosen Xerox copies of my mother to be the women in my life — not the same as the original but a slightly different version with blurred lines and toner stains. Worse, when I have encountered good women, I generally don’t know what to do with them. Or perhaps more accurately, whenever I pick a good woman, I make sure she also has a “fatal” flaw that will enable me to keep her at arm’s length and not engage fully in the relationship. It’s my fucked up way of staying “safe.” If there is something that prevents me from fully engaging, then I don’t have to truly confront all the skewed and inaccurate views of women that I have in my head thanks to mommy dearest. It’s a dichotomy that ultimately leads to the same result: Pick a crazy one that proves my warped presupposition that all women are crazy, or pick a healthy one with a predetermined kill switch that allows for an escape clause when things get too close.
All of this is subconscious. No one sets out to intentionally sabotage relationships before they start. Well, at least not reasonably healthy people. No, it’s all a byproduct of the abuse, and frankly, it’s exhausting.
I’ve heard said from those in drug/alcohol recovery that the biggest problem with recovery is that it destroys the high, simply because once you know better, unhealthy behavior feels like nothing more than unhealthy behavior. When you see things for what they really are, when you know the dire consequences of your actions, the thrill is gone. Any enjoyment that came with the escape or the high is thwarted by the realization that it’s all a ruse that leads down a path of destruction and despair. That’s how I feel about my relationships with women. I’ve screwed them up so many times — usually by my uncanny ability to make bad choices — that I am finally to the point where I can’t enjoy or engage with unhealthy anymore. Or so I hope. I’ve told more than one friend to bitch slap me repeatedly if I wander down the same paths ever again.
So I am learning how to relate to women in a new way. No longer as a rescuer or the White Knight that dad modeled for me so well. Not as the almost-all-in-but-not-really protagonist in ongoing musical drama that is my love life. Not as anything, really, other than who I am, in that moment, and who I can be, in an open, honest, loving relationship over the long haul. It is a significant work progress. I am not fully formed, but I hope I am inching ever closer.
Perhaps I will try once again to look to Mary. I have a hard time in believing her, in believing in her. But maybe, just maybe, she really is here, she who is my mother.