If it's not one thing

 ...it's your mother. Or Advent Two. The Mother. (Not that mother). 

Hello all. I hope you are ok. We are grimly holding on in the middle of Storm Whatever. HOH is bad-tempered and under my feet because even fully fledged lunatics like him cannot sea swim in this weather. He did walk down to the sea, hoping for some sort of weather miracle but he just found one bloke hastily getting dressed, skin flayed red by the cold water. "I didn't swim" he said "I just bobbed about a bit at the edge". Hmm.

The Christmas Tree is up. It's as false as a politician's promise this year. HOH reckoned his days of driving across Devon and dragging home a tree that doubled in size when you took the netting off are over forever. It's fine. I'm paring back. I'm being responsible. HOH and I are Christmas Daying alone this year. When you have kids, you always know that this day will be coming and you have to share them out. They will be coming shortly after Christmas (if they know what's good for them) and HOH and I have a nice chicken lunch planned and a walk on the beach (providing Storm Something Else doesn't arrive) on Christmas Day so all is well. 

I've been reading the beginning of Luke as all proper Christians do at this time of year and reflecting on the experience of the mother there. Not Mary. Elizabeth. At this time of the year it's "Mary this" and "Mary that". I thought it might be nice to talk about someone else. 

Elizabeth's experience of motherhood was eventful. It was unexpected because she was knocking on a bit. It followed her husband leaving the temple unable to speak (and possibly hear as the bible talks about people talking to him through sign language) after a terrifying encounter with an angel. Zechariah wasn't this way because of how scary the angel was (although you notice that whenever an angel opens his mouth, the first thing he has to say, usually to people grovelling in the dust is "Don't be afraid").The next thing Gabriel says is that their prayers have been answered. It seems that although they were too old for what they had continued to ask for, it made no difference. They still carried on and it was heard. Zechariah was struck dumb because he had refused to believe in the miracle. I can't say I blame him. I think it is perfectly possible to pray for something for years and years and not believe it when the answer comes.  

When Elizabeth finds she is pregnant, she retreats for five months. I'm assuming this was a cultural thing. The Message says it was "to relish her pregnancy". This shows how thrilled she must have been. Having spent a good portion of the first half of my pregnancies staring into a toilet bowl, I honestly can't say relish was the word I used. 

Then she is visited by he cousin Mary - herself pregnant in different circumstances. And the child in her womb immediately recognises the child in Mary's womb. And Elizabeth knows who he is as well. These women are going through some stuff. Yet they are not intimidated or doubtful - both are overjoyed. 

I was thinking though that John was a miracle and all that but ultimately - despite all the "Thunder in the Desert" and the big reputation he grew - Elizabeth was, first and foremost,  his mum. When he left home to fulfil the mission to preach - as Gabriel had always said that he would - did she sit on his bed, balling his socks and going a bit wobbly? Did she take honey sandwiches and little dried locusts in a lunch box out into the desert for him? Did she sit in the crowds with her elbows on her knees listening while he spoke, occasionally nudging strangers and saying "That's my son.". Then, when Herod, stupidly fell for a con-trick because he was thinking that the girl who danced for him, seemed very nice and unlikely to demand anything as gruesome as a beheading. Old men - young girls. Tale as old as time as they say. When John was executed, what was that like for Elizabeth? I like to think that she maybe had died by then and didn't have to experience it. After all, she was old when he was born. 

All those early years bringing her boy to manhood. Something that she was never sure would happen. All the joy and love coupled with the ultimate understanding that she couldn't keep him and he had something else to do. 

John's was an eventful life. Short. Noisy. Bolshy. Jesus (not really known as a flatterer) said of him

Let me tell you what’s going on here: No one in history surpasses John the Baptizer

I think Elizabeth would have cut that out of The Nazareth Reporter and kept it in her purse. 

Answers to prayer are funny things. This is not a perfect life. Things sometimes work out but not how we thought that they would. Our fairyland imaginations are rarely how things happen. Yet we don't see that she was anything other than grateful for this opportunity in life. And she had a fine life - full of service and love and truth and smart enough to know what was going on in Mary's womb. I like her. 

Have a great week.