The Communion of Saints

I imagine you sitting across from me - the soft cloud of brown hair framing your heart-shaped face - legs tucked up in the chair, small hands wrapped around a steaming cup of hot tea.
Your forehead is wrinkled in that same puzzled look, and your eyes turned inward, as you process what I've said.
We've been friends forever - since we were little girls growing up... and yet our personalities always seem to be perpetual, mutual mysteries to each other.


I shift impatiently in my seat.


The motion startles you from your thought and you glance up - your warm frank gaze meeting mine:
"I don't know..." you say, "I don't know exactly what's going to happen or what it means."
I'm frustrated that my questions seemed to be the first time the thoughts even crossed your mind.


"But how... It doesn't make any sense. I believe you - but... I don't understand."


The statement is true. I believe you - in a way that anyone who didn't know you -- to them my faith in you might seem ludicrous. But knowing you, you are the only one with this story that I would ever believe unquestioningly. Apparently, I think to myself ironically, in some ways through the years, maybe you have rubbed off on me... 
Not nearly enough though for me to have responded in the same way you did - had I been in your place. It's that unwavering quality about you, the sense of pure faith, that makes so many people think of you as being a little stupid.


"She's sweet..." Jules said to me once, when I was sharing with her a particularly frustrating conversation I had with you once, with the pause heavily weighted at the end of the statement, "Sweet as she can be, but she seems a little... simplistic. Sort-of childish. Are you sure she really thinks about these things?"
"She thinks," I remember answering her, "She just, thinks in a way that doesn't seem to have any feet."


"How did you agree to it?" I ask you wonderingly, "Why would anyone in their right mind ever say 'yes'?"
You smile a little at that, "What are you trying to say -- that I'm crazy?" You ask teasingly - but I flush slightly on the inside - Good God you're perceptive.
"I wouldn't be the first, and I won't be the last," I mutter, "especially after this." 
You laugh... and I marvel at that. 
"Seriously, though," you continue, "It's really not like there was a question. He just showed up - told me that this was going to happen, and what else could I say other than 'ok.'" 


"No." I said, "You could have said, 'Are you out of your mind? No!'"


You look down again, suddenly tired of the circles of the conversation -- studying your worn out slippers absently, poking your finger in the small hole in the top of the left one. 


"Trust me, you wouldn't have if you were in my shoes," you say softly - so low I can barely hear, "It wasn't something you would say no to. He isn't someone anyone can say no to." You look up at me after that, look up and into me, and something in that statement touches the smarting issue in my heart. The conversation has suddenly broken the circle. 


It's my turn to drop that steady clear gaze.
"But... I wasn't chosen." 
The words drag themselves unwillingly from that honest part of my soul that just won't shut up when I want it to. I watch them tumble out and spill the ugly truth in front of both of us. 


I'm jealous. 


I'm wildly relieved not to be in your shoes, not to be faced with the task that you bear - the child that you bear - and what it will mean. All of what we know it will mean for your future,  and all of what we don't know it will mean. Everything we once knew about your life and your world will be forever changed, and it will all happen a matter of months. 


And yet... despite that honest to God relief -- what stings, the pure truth, is that you were chosen. Chosen to bear the Messiah, out of all the women out there... including me. And why you? Why you? 
... Why not me? 
The thought shames me, and the flood accusing thoughts that follow even more: 
It's not like you're not human. I've seen you lose your temper - be petty - be hardheaded and outright wrong. Is it because you're so much more gentle than I am? So much more obedient - more pure. I look at you so often in my life and my imperfections always seem to stand out in the contrast. I can see that you're human, I've watched you laugh, cry, hurt, and retaliate. But even though I know you're just as human as me, it always seemed like you tapped into something - maybe were born with or blessed with - some store of patience and faith and love - that I always seem to lack. My deficiencies -- my sharp edges, unrefined and rough, seem startling clear when I think of the comparison between you and me, and yet I can't understand... I can't understand the wild difference that set you so apart. 


Your small hand, so child-like in size and shape, crosses my plane of vision and suddenly you are kneeling by my side, your cloudless brown eyes peering up into mine. 
"It's not because it's me," you say, as though you were reading the thoughts as they flashed across my mind, "It's not. I know that doesn't make any sense, but I think one day you'll understand. It wasn't because there was anything special about me, it's all Him." 
The words are rushing out of you - those thoughts you've bottled up that go high and deep - those thoughts with no feet on this earth, but wings.


"This is different from anything I have ever known, ever felt, ever believed," you share and your face is glowing. Words, never your strong point, are struggling to voice what you mean... "It's a gift of God's grace that I will bear him. It's a blessing, not that I was chosen because of me, but that He chose me. He chose us. He's coming -- He's coming to all of us." 
You struggle again for the words - trying to help me bridge this gap between us - 
"It's not because of anything I've done - or because of any way I am..." you repeat.
The words hit me, but aren't quite sticking... yet.


"One day, one day soon you'll understand," you say, that child-like faith again, "He'll come to you - He'll ask you to say 'yes,' and you'll find that in order not to say 'yes,' you will have had to set your heart against him... and you can't. If you love anything good, anything beautiful, if you hope for any hope, you can't. Not when it's him asking." 


I look at you, drawn in by your words, and watch the truth fall unwillingly from my lips,
"How can you be so sure -- How can you be so sure he will ever ask me." 


You pause. 
"I guess," you say hesitantly, testing the statement like unstable footing, before committing to it, "I guess, because... he already is... right now." 
You look at me, willing me to understand, "Somewhere, deep down inside I believe that to be true. I know you don't quite believe me... but I think -- simply because you want him to ask you at all, that's good. So, let's just wait and see. Wait for him with me. Let's just wait and hope and pray on Him together. Because I don't know what else to do. What else is there to do?"
You ask helplessly. 
"You say yes, you wait, you pray. You watch to see what He will do... what else is there to do..." you've drawn inward again, your hands still resting on mine. 


The slight tremble in your voice on that echo snaps me out of my self-focus and for a second your humanity strikes me again. In a different way this time -- no longer in accusation. I think of myself in your shoes and I realize that you're just as scared as I would be... as I am. You're looking into all the things that this will mean, and all that we don't know what it will mean, and it's happening. It's like you said -- it's not like there really is a question... it simply is happening. You're sucked into it, like the rip tide in the sea, and you're waiting to see on what strange shore it will dump you.


I reach out and touch your bent brown head and you rest it on my knee. I smooth your hair out. 
"Okay Mary," I say simply and breathe deep--releasing it heavily, "Okay. Let's just wait and see. We'll wait together - with hope." 
"For hope." You amend softly. 
I think about that for a second... I don't mention that hope has a way of breaking your heart... we both know that. Clearly. 
"For hope," I agree. 


We're waiting. I pray silently. We're waiting with expectancy. Okay? okay... we're waiting.
Amen.