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

It’s all about her

 

John 12:1-8

Mary Anoints Jesus

Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”

It’s not about the poor

It’s not about the dinner guests 

It’s not about the keeper of the purse

It’s about a woman’s extravagant gift

The costly ointment

The fragrance

The unadulterated love exposed for all to see

And the discomfort of 

witnessing such beauty and truth 

becomes too much to bear

And so the focus is diverted

from a woman’s gift

to the men’s distraction techniques

lest we, too, should be moved

to such radical acts of  love

that are searing to witness

causing those not comfortable in their own skin

to look away

to find distraction

in things that, in this moment,

do not matter.

Our discomfort might be transformed

by looking deeply

at the longings

and the fears

the envy

and the loss

that are stirred up in us

who bear witness

to a pure

and spontaneous love.

It’s all about Mary

and her love.