Mother’s Night

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It wouldn’t be Christmas, in the Christian tradition, without Mary. Still, apart from her later enhanced role in Roman Catholicism, Mary’s part beyond Christmas is minor in the church. She seldom features in biblical accounts of Jesus’ life. It is easy to forget the female role that was so much a part of winter solstice celebrations that coalesced into our modern twelve days (really only one, for work purposes). That’s why I was glad that a friend sent me a link to a site about Mödraniht, or Mother’s Night. Honestly, I had never heard of this holiday before. Given the Germanic penchant for dramatic festivities, it comes as no surprise that Yule involved a night celebrating the feminine aspects of the season. Apart from the occasional references to Mary, we tend to think of this as the time a male son of a male God came to save mankind. What of the women without whom none of this would have been possible?

As Carolyn Emerick notes on her page, we know little about this sacred day because Christianity managed to wipe out most of the pagan traditions of northern Europe. Some, of course, survived and worked their way into Christmas. Modern holidays, being primarily days off work rather than deeply felt celebration (for we live in a world with no need for religion), have gravitated toward what had once been the male preserve of earning a living. Watching movies of Dickensian times, it is clear the women continued to work—likely even more than usual—to bring off a holiday celebration. It was the male prerogative to be the recipient of largess.

Photo credit: "Urban" WikiMedia Commons

Photo credit: “Urban” WikiMedia Commons

My concern is that gender equality may sometimes be confused with gender stereotyping, or even with patronization. How is it possibly to build equality into a system put into place by generations of men? Is civilization truly civilizing when half of the race and only a very small portion of the planet benefits? The Christmas season, even now rapidly slipping away, is a time for considering equality. Every year modern non-believers and humanists ask for equality—a dream always held at arm’s length, since the holiday earns record profits as it is, and the financial year revolves around it like a Pole Star. It is the time of year when we see if we’ve turned a healthy profit. The rules in the system were set long ago. Even with Mary in the manger, she blends into the background while shepherds, wise men, and other interested males plan to make a holiday of it.

Magnificat

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IMG_1857One of the advantages of a huge endowment is the luxury to experience culture. Although we don’t live in Princeton, we don’t live far from it, and most years we venture down to hear the free Advent Concert given by the Princeton Chapel Choir. For those of you who’ve never been to the Princeton campus, or perchance have not visited the chapel there, the setting is part of the experience. On the order of a small Medieval cathedral, the campus chapel at Princeton is by far the largest I’ve encountered, and the acoustics from the soaring stone are impressive, even to an untrained ear such as mine. Since my wife is the musical one in this marriage, she reads the program with an avidity I lack, but I do recognize striking music when I hear it. This year’s concert included a piece I recollected from a few years ago, Christine Donkin’s “Magnificat.”

I’m at the age where it is no longer surprising to find very talented people much younger than myself. Christine Donkin is in this class. A Canadian composer, she has had her music performed in major venues such as Carnegie Hall. Her “Magnificat” is the only piece with which I am familiar, but it is a powerful work that can be compared to a mystical experience in the listening. Written for women’s voices, the piece evokes a spirituality that seems to come easily to those who are submissive. The Magnificat is, by tradition, Mary’s psalm of submission to the divine will, based on 1 Samuel’s account of Hannah conceiving the prophet Samuel. In a world dominated by male humans as well as a male deity, the song of Mary is one of the subtle poems celebrating the upsetting of the entrenched power structures that have held women down. If you listen closely enough, its subversive elements become clear.

Donkin’s “Magnificat,” in a darkening cathedral on a December evening, is a moving experience. It is a piece that leaves me feeling as if I’ve temporarily been somewhere else. And that elsewhere is far from the turmoil and troubles of daily life. And there are no men involved.

Over the years we’ve heard many impressive performances in that stone edifice. None, however, it seems to me, so powerful as that of a young woman confronted with a reality beyond that of everyday life. A reality that men cannot touch, but which, when the circumstances are right, they might hear if they’re willing to listen, and in doing so might find their own burdens lightened for a few minutes on a winter’s evening.