The last term of my first year has begun! Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, meals. A suspicious lack of lectures though - just my 11.00 MTh on a Friday. Well, I could do with a quieter term. My aim is to fill the silence with some reading about spirituality and Priesthood which isn't related to any essay I'm doing, so as to start getting into the mindset of starting a curacy next year.
Morning Prayer yesterday was a little bit tough. Having felt really quite well over the holidays, I came over all dizzy again in the hot chapel and spent most of the service sitting down. The GP thinks I might be a bit anaemic, which sounds likely. This morning I decided to sit up in the balcony where it's less like a tin of sardines, and take a glass of water with me, and while I still felt like I could keel over at any minute, it made the experience more bearable.
I mention this because this morning's gospel reading was Luke's Annunciation. I've checked my lectionary and can see no reason as to why we get this one today, but there you go... Anyway, holding my head, sipping my water and listening to this reading, a funny thought bestruck me; I wonder if Mary experienced these sort of symptoms? Not just anaemia, but all the other things that go with pregnancy; sickness, heartburn, tiredness, and all the less bloggable stuff.
Given that God chose to become incarnate through an ordinary (albeit highly-favoured) woman, and given that the biology of pregnancy hasn't changed a lot, I would have thought it's likely this was her experience. But, unlike me, she probably didn't have a lot of medical support avaliable. And she probably didn't find herself in receipt of a lot of sympathy. I've heard it said that Mary would have been around 13-years-old, about the normal age of betrothal in that time. Women probably spent most of their pregnancy indoors, and with criticism for being unmarried, I can't imagine Mary saw a lot of other people for those 9 months, and those whom she saw may not have felt moved to cheer her up by, say, buying her a nice set of sleepsuits from Mothercare to furnish her baby wardrobe. So while pregnancy hasn't changed, she surely wouldn't have had as much support as I do.
Baby A's various quirks make living in the 21st century a particular blessing. Even in the middle of the last century babies with spina bifida weren't expected to live into adulthood, and parents wouldn't have known about the condition until the baby was born. I, on the other hand, am getting brilliant support (yesterday my GP, who I met for the first time, said "oh I suppose 99% people in your situation would terminate," which made me rather cross, but she's been the exception). On Friday I'm going for my MRI scan, MRIs in complicated pregnancies being yet another recent development.
Aside from reflecting on Mary and Baby A I've been mainly working on essays. Essay-writing is getting me very much frustrated, it doesn't seem to hold the joy it once did! Luckily, I genuinely don't care about getting brilliant marks in my MTh. The 'Potential Theological Educator' suggestion has been well and truly laid aside. Give me the work of a Parish Priest any day!
Talking of, I found out this morning where my 2nd year church placement will be. I haven't contacted them yet so I can't say where, but it's liturgical, inclusive and rural, which is what I wanted. Should soon be finding out curacy. Now that will be very exciting!
By the way, for those of your interested in Holy Hogwarts, Radio 4's Sunday Worship is being broadcast from here on Sunday at 8.10am. Just a little plug there!
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