Hold my Beer!

 

Truly I tell you, wherever this good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.
Matthew 13:26 

It seems that, all of my life, I have disappointed people by not conforming to their notion of how things could or should be done. And, time and again, I have had to forge a path through territory in which it was clear I wasn't expected to thrive. All of which simply gave me more determination, not only to find a way, but to find a tribe and to form companionship along the way. For me, it seems, there is no greater motivation to succeed than being told I shouldn't go there!

I have taken inspiration from many Biblical women, named and unnamed, who displayed traits of leadership rarely recognised in any leadership tomes or seminars. Skills like tenacity, passion, creativity, or persistence, skills that subverted the culture in which they lived, and enabled them not simply to survive, but to flourish in the midst of  patriarchy.

Writing, for me, has always been a way to process and reflect. And, on occasion, those reflections have proved threatening to some.

Mary of Bethany or the woman with the Alabaster Jar, who anointed Jesus before his death, is just one of my inspirations. She was a woman unafraid to display her passion and her sensuousness, unwilling to curb her spontaneity for the sake of the men around her who were clearly discomfited by her extravagance.
What if our worship engaged more than the cerebral and we found an openness to all of our senses being scintillated? What then?

Mary, a woman of passion
who refused to indulge
the notion of propriety
held by the men around her
a woman who loved all over Jesus,
body, mind and soul
a woman who intuited the passion to come
and anointed her beloved
in preparation for his death
Through the ages,
she might have been labelled a witch
for her knowing,
her knowing what was to come,
her knowing what potion might soothe
her knowing how to love before death
May we remember her wherever the good news is told today
bewitched by Mary, a woman of passion.

(Liz Crumlish April 2025)

My book is available here: Miriam's Sisters, Deborah's Daughters When women lead the way by Liz Crumlish - Paperback / softback - 9781786226051