Midrash as Spiritual Practice.

 

First, on the Third Day

    “Make a Gospel Contemplation on how Jesus, now Lord, appears to his mother, Mary. There is no scripture for this. But as Ignatius suggests in notation, it is presumed.” 

                  - The Ignatian Spiritual Exercises, Veltri

When he was little, she’d pretend she couldn’t find him. 

This was before his wandering tween years. 

He’d jump out from behind a rock or a tree 

where she’d already seen his coat billowing around him, 

“Surprise! Gotcha!” 

She would act shocked every time.

Today, like yesterday, it is too quiet. 

She is tired of waiting.

“Hey, Momma,” he says, 

as if he’d just come home from summer camp 

or college 

or a tour overseas. 

As if he were opening the fridge, drinking milk straight from the bottle.

“There you are,” she says. “I’ve been waiting.”

“Sorry. I got held up.”

She laughs despite herself. She groans. 

She rolls her eyes and punches his shoulder. 

She has a pretty good reach for such tiny hands. 

Would he ever take any of this seriously? 

He has. He has. And now that’s done. It’s done.

What happens next?

He’s still the same. 

Maybe a little sadder, a little quieter, 

but still the same boy who collected his treasures on the windowsill. 

She hands them to him.

A snail shell.

An acorn.

A stalk of wheat.

A flat rock. Good for skipping.

A broken piece of clay.

“Here. These belong to you,” she says.

“Oh. I’d forgotten about those. Thanks for keeping them safe.”

“I think it was you that did that."

His smile is half, crooked. 

He is far away.

He knows a secret he cannot yet tell.

“Did you take that man with you? The one who asked?”

“Yeah, Ma, he’s fine. They’re all fine.”

He yawns, stretches, rubs his temples. 

That line in his forehead is new.

She knows that he will leave again.

It will be his choice.

She is so proud of him. Sometimes she wishes she didn’t have to be.

“Well, go on. Don’t you have work to do?”

“Yeah. I do,” he sighs, “and I’m starving.”

“Well. Get on then.”

She gives him a push. It’s harder than she meant.

He runs off. He seems lighter. 

He doesn’t look back.

Is this how it was? 

It is how it could have been, and that is enough.