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This is the honest grace of her body:
that she is afraid, and in this moment does not
hide her fear. That as the pink-robed angel
bends before her pure with the power of lightness,
she wants to turn away, she cannot look
into the angel’s graven face. Because the child
meant to form in her will change her.
Because all she has known will dissolve,
pulling back from her like water…
Mary’s acceptance of the divine invitation irrevocably changed the contour of her life - in ways she could not, at that moment, possible envision.
And thus it is in our lives as well. There are times when unexpected events change the course of our lives, times when our lives get turned inside out. Louis Macneice refers to such experiences as Mutations:
Each of us has known mutations in the mind
When the world jumped and what had been a plan
Dissolved and rivers gushed from what had seemed a pool.
For every static world that you or I impose
Upon the real one must crack at times and new
Patterns from new disorders open like a rose
And old assumptions yield to new sensations.
The Stranger in the wings is waiting for his cue.
The fuse is already laid to some annunciation.
Many years ago, a young woman was asked to surrender her life in service to Divine Love. She might have been afraid, but she responded, “May it be done to me according to your word." There was a mutation in her life - and in ours as well. I wonder if I can surrender that completely.