I've been reading about the virgin Mary. She always was the most interesting part of Catholicism to me.

In the Middle Ages, plays would be done at Christmas to demonstrate the nativity. In them, Mary would painlessly give birth to Jesus, filled with joy. Part of this was to show that she remained a virgin in CHILDBIRTH. Because Jesus is magical.

Since the Qur'an doesn't believe Jesus is magical, etc, the chapter about Mary (yes, there is more about the virgin Mary in the Qur'an than in the Bible...) describes her childbirth as horrifically painful. She goes through it alone. Joseph doesn't even exist in Mary's life in the Qur'an.

People have also debated a bunch about if Mary stayed a virgin her whole life. It's a conflict of the duties of a woman to matrimony and subservience and the duties of mankind to purity and spiritual devotion. Joseph gets drawn a lot in art looking really old and harmless, sleeping and things. See? Why would she have sex with a very un-verile man? But that wasn't very impressive to some Catholics, so they drew Joseph being more useful and sexy so it was a challenge for Mary! Such lengths are gone to to prove Mary is a virgin. The bible talks about Jesus' bretherin, and scholars claim they are just Jesus' cousins from Mary's mom. But Mary's mom is supposed to be almost barren and really excited she even got to birth Mary. I think a big part of the insistence on Mary's virginity was: why would she have sex for babies if she already got to have the most incredible baby/God ever? Because she wouldn't just have sex for pleasure. It seems to be a conflict that Mary goes between stories of her leading a usual matrimonial life and the part of her that is supposed to be sheer divine purity.

Another interesting thing about Mary is the fixation on her as the partial antidote to Eve. Since people claim Eve introduced sin into the world and cursed women to be treated like subservient beings with evil tempt-y wiles, Mary somehow was supposed to have done everything the opposite of Eve. Eve introduces sex, Mary introduces celibate birth. Eve disobeys God, Mary obeys God. Women were told to look up to Mary as their guiding figure- as a woman, wife, mother, etc. At the same time, they were told they could never ever attain any of her qualities and should sulk to show repentance for Eve's sins and being related to Eve. Why did they gain strength from an ideal that served as the framework to make them feel like they were sin filled? And yet she is quite the attractive mentor and martyr.

It's interesting that she accepts God's word in the Bible with no consideration otherwise. She just obeys, like Abraham or Moses or whoever have you from the old testament. She's a feminine ideal of unattainability with qualities of old male followers of God. She is so passive and strong at the same time in her obedience, like them. She's just a tool of things, not a person.

That's why the Madonna and Child portraits full of loving touching are such an interesting contradiction- we see Mary's humanity. But she is supposed to be so inhuman in her rejection of sin. While appreciating the pleasures of motherhood, which are earthly pleasures as well.

I thought I would paint her and the christ child with the christ child sticking a finger up her nose and her laughing for my project. I'll upload that if it doesn't suck really hard. I want to twist the maternal joy into a very earthly version of itself.

It's an interesting concept, that Mary and Christ make each other into pseudo gods and pseudo humans when together on earth. She gives him this fleshy, vulnerable body- he's painted nursing with her often even- and he gives her this transcendent peaceful gaze and glow. They live in a pseudo state in those paintings together, tainted and enriched by the heavenly and the earthly. SO weird.

I remember when I was a kid, being so confused by the feminine ideal of Mary. I was maybe 9, crying to my mom about how all the church wanted out of me was that I laid around passive for men and popping out babies and keeping quiet and never doing anything... somehow chaste in my lack of personal opinions.

Maybe some women worshipped Mary as they did just because she created without needing an earthly man and seemed to raise the child on her own.

Merp. Good night. Religion is a strange thing. It shifts a lot. It's strange how it can affect your life so much too, before you can back up and even think about it, it can teach you some fundamental beliefs and feelings about things you may not even know you have.

Even though I don't logically believe in christianity anymore, I feel like it would be really comforting for me to pray to her or for her, on a rosary, whatever. I have a little statue of her in my room. I have conflicts with my current agnosticism and my appreciation of Catholic art. And it's so beautiful and peaceful, I guess sometimes. It roots me to my childhood and my family and friends and town from another time.
The way Mary just watches. She does things silently, as seem wise to do. And so often just watches. An expression, witnessing an event, loving a person, looking at you. And others paint her into different contexts and roles. She's even been painted as a warrior figure in chainmail. There's something pretty and eerie about it all. Sad too.