Lindsay L. O'Connor

Power Trip

Signs, wonders, and miracles

are the shiny packages

that tell us of God’s might

but oh, 

how we have despised God’s weakness!

And in so doing,

perhaps we have learned

to despise our own.

But Jesus submitted

to the vulnerability of birth and death

and all the joy and pain

and every-day-ness in between.

In the name of Christianity,

women have been reminded over and over

of our weakness,

the need to submit to those who are

stronger,

smarter,

braver,

and hope for the best,

which, they say,

would be to find someone 

who is up to the task

of protecting us.

What a shock, then,

when God Almighty submitted to the protection of Mary’s womb 

after obtaining her consent.

She accepted the invitation 

to co-create a body for God.

God grew within the confines of her body,

stretching her out—

“Prepare Him room!”—

her body chosen to carry and nourish 

her Creator.

The heartbeat of God

began in the secret places of a woman’s body,

in symphony with the heartbeat of Mary’s,

where she pondered these mysteries.

Jesus, worn out from journeying

within the confines of His human flesh,

asked the Samaritan woman for a drink,

allowing her to meet Him in His neediness 

before He met her in her own.

Women funded his ministry—

did you ever think of God fundraising?!—

parting with their wealth

to invest in His upside down kingdom.

Jesus, Son of God,

born of a woman,

funded by women,

discipling women,

cherishing women

whom the world threw away.

God brings down the powerful 

from their thrones,

beginning with God’s very own Self.

This is the mystery of 

Emmanuel,

God with us,

God 

becoming 

flesh.

~Lindsay L. O’Connor