Lincoln Cathedral Statue |
From: ‘The Possessed’ by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
And at that time an old woman,
who was living in the convent doing penance for prophesying the future,
whispered to me as she was coming out of the church, ‘What is the mother of
God?’
The vicar had spoken of the ‘Mother
of God’ during the course of his sermon and my mind slipped back to my
childhood days and a picture in my illustrated bible. It was of Mary weeping at
the foot of the cross. I was taught that Mary was a virgin, a Jewish girl from
Nazareth and the wife of Joseph the carpenter. These were the facts I had
learnt as a little girl but I had always found them strange and unbelievable.
How do we know Jesus was not Joseph’s baby? If she were married to Joseph, was she
likely to be a virgin?
We have a convent in our town,
a strikingly beautiful building adjacent to the old Mary Magdalene church where
my granddaughter Georgia and I went today. It is the convent where the old
woman is serving her penance. She is Sister Rosemary and a familiar figure in
town. It’s a self-imposed penance. Women are not sent to convents these days
for their beliefs. Like Karen Armstrong, the author of ‘The Spiral Staircase’, Sister
Rosemary believes she may find God by spending days in contemplation. She told
me she has not found him yet. Nor did Karen Armstrong, who remained with the
sisters for seven years. We have a mosque and a synagogue in our town too and members
from both, serve on the council. Our mayor is from Bangladesh and very good at
his job. There is quite a bit of prejudice in the town, prejudice being a
euphemism for outright racism.
Today is a special Sunday because my granddaughter Georgia is staying with me, and she is my favourite guest. I am not in the habit of attending church but Georgia is taking a GCSE in RE so I thought it might be helpful as we could talk about the sermon and share our views. I do not pretend to be a Christian; I am an agnostic.
When Georgia was young, and
lived close by, I used to collect her from school on the day she had bible stories.
Often for her homework she had to make a drawing. She liked to draw the flat-roofed
houses of Palestine as wobbly-edged squares. Her favourite subject was the lame
man lowered through the roof for Jesus to heal. In Georgia’s drawing, the bed, with
horizontal stick man, hovered over the house like a magic carpet. In another drawing
was a stick man with smiley mouth, standing before his house waving a flag.
Georgia had explained it was not a flag, it was his bed!
We walked home past the convent
to our favourite bench by the river. I thought of the old woman’s query, thrown
to the crowd: ‘What is the Mother of God?’
I asked Georgia if she imagined
God having a mother. In her teenage practical manner, she said, of course, all
creatures need a mother in order to exist. Here we entered existential territory
and considered whether God was a creature or not. Georgia was not sure about
God but knew Jesus was most definitely a creature because he was seen by his
disciples and the pharisees.
I get confused, said Georgia when I am told
that God and Jesus are supposed to be the same; I don’t understand that. We are
taught about the trinity being God the father, God the son and God the Holy
ghost. What on earth is the Holy ghost and how can all three be one?
Religion can be very obscure;
I think to myself. Georgia and I agree that the Three in One or Trinity is a
difficult concept. Now we have two mysteries to solve; the Mother of God and
the Holy Ghost?
We walked along the riverbank
in heavenly sunshine; please note the adjective, religion is all-pervasive! We reached
my cottage and took our coffee into the garden. We used Georgia’s i-pad to help
us research the Holy Ghost.
We read: ‘The holy ghost or
holy spirit is the divine force, the divine quality and influence of God over
the universe or over his creatures. We noted there is also a holy spirit in
Islam and in the Baha’i faith it is an intermediary between God and man.’ I
suggested we concentrate on Christianity or there’d be no end to our
investigation. Georgia told me that as a child, the mention of the Holy ghost made
her think of a transparent figure in white, floating in the air and being very
scary, as ghosts usually are.
We focus our attention on the
Mother of God and concentrate on exploring our own ideas.
How do you visualise the
mother of God, Georgia?
Firstly, I am not sure if I believe in God,
she says, but if I think of him, (and I never think he’s female), I see an old
man with a long beard, looking down from a cloud with a kindly smile.
This used to be my own view
too, I say, until I trained myself to think differently. My knowledge of the
universe and its vastness has affected my belief in a God. Anthropomorphising
God too, is a step too far. I explain my thoughts to Georgia
Again we have allowed
ourselves to be diverted so we return to; ‘what is the mother of God?’
God seems too old to have a mother,
says Georgia, and if I visualise his mother, I see her as young, like Mary, the
mother of Jesus. How can that be?
That can only be explained if
we think of God and Jesus as being one and the same, I say; Mary would be the
mother of both father and son. If we
believed in eternal life, heaven would be a place where age no longer existed
and then all things would be possible
Let’s free our minds and think
in a more metaphorical way, I say; what was the vicar driving at? Do you think
the mother of God is a metaphor? That it stands for something else? I was
trying to lead Georgia to my own perspective, that most religious concepts are metaphorical.
I decided to talk to Georgia about the Ancient
Greeks and their mythology. I asked if she had heard of Gaia. She shook her head, and I explained. According
to the Greeks, Gaia was the Goddess of the Earth. Another name given her by the Romans was Terra,
which means Earth. Therefore Gaia, according to the Greeks, is Mother Earth.
So, do you think God stands
for the Earth and that the mother of God, is the mother of the Earth? Georgia asks?
I believe
I do, I say, but what form would she take? Does she have a form?
Georgia has no idea how God’s
mother would look, but then she has an idea; if God is the Earth, then surely the Earth’s mother will be something
or somethings that look after the Earth, her son? Or daughter? All good mothers
look after their children.
What do you think those things
are? I say, It certainly isn’t human beings at the moment. What do you think
nurtures our Earth?
Georgia gives it some thought. Well, I believe
it is only the natural things that make our Earth a good place to be; like the
sun, the rain and the wind. And also, all the living things like plants and insects,
fish and birds, and animals. They live their lives in the only way they know
how and make the Earth a beautiful place to live. I was delighted that Georgia
had worked this out for herself, because her ideas matched mine exactly.
Georgia
went home the next day but we promised to message each other and to continue
thinking about the mother of God. I thought of going to talk to the old woman
in the convent but first I looked along my bookshelves and took down Dostoyevsky’s
‘The Possessed.’ I remembered that in this novel, he spoke of God in a
philosophical way. I found a page where the storyteller is telling another
woman called ‘Shatuska’, about an old woman who came out of church and asked
the storyteller: ‘what is the mother of God? Just as in my story.
Old woman: What is the
mother of God? What do you think?
Storyteller: It is ‘The great
mother, the hope of the human race.
Old woman: Yes, ‘the mother
of God is the great mother- the damp earth, and therein lies great joy for men.
And every earthly woe and every earthly tear is a joy for us; and when you
water the earth with your tears a foot deep, you will rejoice at everything at
once, and your sorrow will be no more; such is the prophecy.’
Here was the collaboration I
needed for mine and Georgia’s understanding of the mother of God. I talked to
Georgia that evening and she was excited about our theory. I am sure it will
help in my exams she said. Perhaps it will surprise the examiners if I mention
Dostoyevsky!
Just one funny thing, she said;
I asked my friend Lizzie today if she knew what the mother of God was, and she then
went on to make me laugh. She said; Georgia, do you ever watch the Line of Duty?
No I said; why?
Well, said Lizzie; one of the
characters, Superintendent Ted Hasting is known for his hilarious sayings, and
his favourite one is:
‘Jesus, Mary and Mother of God!’ That made us
both laugh. Then Lizzie told me he came out with a better one recently. This
time, he said ‘Jesus, Mary and the wee donkey!’ That made us laugh out loud!
I listened to Georgia and then
I laughed out loud too. We said goodnight.
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