Sing our souls

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Would it be that we all could sing our souls. I think Mary helps us. I think we should read her song, and preach it, and sing it over and over again.

Sampling Isaiah, Mary's song sings of mercy, strength, humility, and the truest meaning of charity. Her song hears in each of these virtues a gift of God, and a sign of God's desire for all. Her song sings of these gifts as the source of her new resolve.

Visiting her cousin Elizabeth—where Mary is safe, cared for, defended against those who would doubt her experience and question her story—she is able to find these things for herself. And she is able to find what she needs to return home and live them out.

She is with Elizabeth and Zechariah for the last trimester of her cousin's own pregnancy. Three months, three being the sign and time of transformation. I think of Jonah, who flees God and is in the belly of the Great Fish for three days. I think of Paul, studying for three years before beginning his ministry. I think of Jesus, whose three years of ministry are enough to change everything. And then his three hours on the cross, and then his three days entombed before resurrection. 

Those three months are the time Mary needs to receive, distill, integrate, communicate—and to follow the gifts of mercy, strength, humility, and the truest form of charity that well up from within when she sings in response to Elizabeth's blessing. 

Isn't Mary's song part of the long history of how God has used those who will let their lives be larger than themselves, who will see their strength not in their own accomplishment but in accepting their place in that larger work, who will not grab power for themselves but will use power for good, and who see these blessings as things fit for all to receive?

It is, and it has always been meant to be our song, too. It recognizes the way things are, sings with righteous resistance to things out of joint, and names the virtues we're given to make things new.

Would it be that we all could sing our souls.