Nursing Madonna honors body, spirit and women

Nursing Madonna: Our Lady of Travels to Life with Reality

Photo by Trudie Barreras

An unusual nursing Madonna statue emphasizes the body-to-body connection between Mary and the baby Jesus.

The nursing Madonna figurine illustrates the flight into Egypt that is remembered this time of year. According to the gospel of Matthew, the Holy Family traveled from Bethlehem to Egypt after an angel warned them that King Herod would try to kill the infant Jesus.

It’s important to honor the breastfeeding Madonna because Christianity has often denied women’s experiences and the human body itself. We return to wholeness and balance by valuing the natural act of nursing as holy and good.

Some people were shocked by the bare breasts of the Madonna when Atlanta writer Trudie Barreras put the statue in a meditation chapel at her church. The pastor regretfully asked her to take it home. For the full story about the statue, see our previous post “Nursing Madonna shocks and inspires.”

In her monologue “Miriam’s Journey,” Barreras does a wonderful job of describing the physical sensations and spiritual musings of Mary as she nursed on donkey back. Here is an excerpt:

We soon became aware
Our little Yeshua needed safety greater than was offered
By our small-town obscurity.

So my brave Joseph took us forth on a retracing of the journey
Followed by our ancestor Joseph as he was led in slavery to Egypt.

That was when reality came crashing in!
I’d thought the way was hard
When first we went to Bethlehem!
Yet now I held the babe within my arms
For every dusty, weary, jolting league.
Mile after mile, day after day,
Nothing to be seen but rocks and thorn-trees
And endless burning desert sands.
The patient donkey plodded on
While Joseph walked the path ahead,
Probing crevices for serpents, scanning horizons for raiders.

I was afraid, yet somehow I saw with doubled vision
As I gazed into that infant face,
For God was here, and we had Abba’s promise
That if we did our part, and followed faithfully,
And did not turn aside from this hard path,
The angels would be there to guide us.
And oh, the blessing of those warm lips upon my breast,
Drawing nourishment and love from my deepest being!
I knew then what I have clung to ever since –
Somehow that vast Omniscient Spirit of the Cosmos,
All Powerful, Eternal, All Supreme,
Has chosen us, weak mortals that we are
To bear Love’s fragile gifts to one another!
We matter! What a miracle, we matter!
What an awesome challenge,
Knowing that if we don’t bear our burdens in obedience
Incredible blessings for humanity are lost.
It was these thoughts that kept me going
Long after weary arms would have let go!

At last that first hard journey ended, but of course
Really our pilgrimage had just begun.

For another excerpt from “Miriam’s Journey,” see our previous post “Eros & Christ: Mary’s Ecstasy in Drama.”

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Related link:
Our Lady of Milk: 20 Images of Mother Mary Nursing (St. Peter’s List)

Banned photo shows gay Christ figure

Cross Currents Fall 1972 cover with photo by Damon de Winters

A church magazine with a nude cover photo of a gay Christ figure with his friend was banned in 1972, but you can see it now at the Jesus in Love Blog. Almost 40 years later the photo is still risqué -- and beautiful.

The photo by Damon de Winters appeared on the cover of the fall 1972 issue of “Cross Currents,” the quarterly magazine of Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco. The models, Todd and David Eric Charon, were positioned to discreetly hide any frontal nudity.

The photo seems to portray a gay Jesus with his Beloved Disciple. The bearded Christ figure offers a loving touch and a chalice of wine to his kneeling friend. Behind them stands a cross built from natural logs. The image echoes the Last Supper, when Jesus says, “Drink of it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant” (Matthew 26:27-28).

The MCC-SF board of directors banned the magazine for release because they felt that the cover was “inappropriate for a church publication,” recalls Lynn Jordan, who served as editor-in-chief of Cross Currents. Jordan recently celebrated 40 years of membership at MCC-SF.

“Senior pastor Reverend Jim Sandmire received a lot of criticism over this issue of the magazine,” Jordan says.

In response to the uproar, Rev. Sandmire wrote an open letter dated Nov. 15, 1972. “While I do not think the cover or other pictures of nudes are in any way obscene, I believe the nudity does not enhance the religious message intended, and may detract from it,” Rev. Sandmire wrote at the time..

A headline on the cover also brings up another subject that remains surprisingly contemporary: “Gay marriage.”

Thank you, Lynn Jordan, for providing this Cross Currents cover image so it can finally reach its audience. It is historically, spiritually and artistically significant.
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P.S. I received this update today from Lynn Jordan: “I spoke with founding member Frank Howell (now 72) who said he thought the photo tried to convey that we bring with us both our sexuality and spirituality when we receive communion.”

Nursing Madonna honors body, spirit and women

Nursing Madonna: Our Lady of Travels to Life with Reality

Photo by Trudie Barreras

An unusual nursing Madonna statue emphasizes the body-to-body connection between Mary and the baby Jesus.

Some people were shocked by the bare breasts of the Madonna when Atlanta writer Trudie Barreras put the statue in a meditation chapel at her church. The pastor regretfully asked her to take it home. For the full story about the statue, see our previous post “Nursing Madonna shocks and inspires.”

It’s important to honor the breastfeeding Madonna because Christianity has often denied women’s experiences and the human body itself. We return to wholeness and balance by valuing the natural act of nursing as holy and good.

The nursing Madonna figurine illustrates the flight into Egypt. According to the gospel of Matthew, the Holy Family traveled from Bethlehem to Egypt after an angel warned them that King Herod would try to kill the infant Jesus.

In her monologue “Miriam’s Journey,” Barreras does a wonderful job of describing the physical sensations and spiritual musings of Mary as she nursed on donkey back. Here is an excerpt:

We soon became aware
Our little Yeshua needed safety greater than was offered
By our small-town obscurity.

So my brave Joseph took us forth on a retracing of the journey
Followed by our ancestor Joseph as he was led in slavery to Egypt.

That was when reality came crashing in!
I’d thought the way was hard
When first we went to Bethlehem!
Yet now I held the babe within my arms
For every dusty, weary, jolting league.
Mile after mile, day after day,
Nothing to be seen but rocks and thorn-trees
And endless burning desert sands.
The patient donkey plodded on
While Joseph walked the path ahead,
Probing crevices for serpents, scanning horizons for raiders.

I was afraid, yet somehow I saw with doubled vision
As I gazed into that infant face,
For God was here, and we had Abba’s promise
That if we did our part, and followed faithfully,
And did not turn aside from this hard path,
The angels would be there to guide us.
And oh, the blessing of those warm lips upon my breast,
Drawing nourishment and love from my deepest being!
I knew then what I have clung to ever since –
Somehow that vast Omniscient Spirit of the Cosmos,
All Powerful, Eternal, All Supreme,
Has chosen us, weak mortals that we are
To bear Love’s fragile gifts to one another!
We matter! What a miracle, we matter!
What an awesome challenge,
Knowing that if we don’t bear our burdens in obedience
Incredible blessings for humanity are lost.
It was these thoughts that kept me going
Long after weary arms would have let go!

At last that first hard journey ended, but of course
Really our pilgrimage had just begun.

For another excerpt from “Miriam’s Journey,” see our previous post “Eros & Christ: Mary’s Ecstasy in Drama.”

Nursing Madonna shocks and inspires

An unusual statuette of Mary breastfeeding the baby Jesus shocked some with its nudity, but inspired the faith of others, including Atlanta writer Trudie Barreras. She submitted the photo above and the following story about this “marvelously sensitive and realistic perspective of the mother of Jesus.” The Jesus in Love Blog is sharing Barreras’ moving and important materials here because we support art that seeks to embody spirituality.

OUR LADY OF TRAVELS TO LIFE WITH REALITY
By Trudie Barreras

My husband Ray and I made a trip to Monterrey, Mexico in December of 2001, traveling by bus because we were disgusted with all the “security frenzy” that had gripped air travel in the aftermath of 9/11. The trip, even though via “express” buses, was a grueling 26 hours, and we arrived at our destination, the MCC church in Monterrey, quite worn out.

Shortly thereafter, I discovered a little statuette of Mary riding donkey-back and nursing the infant Jesus. This statue was in a “Christmas market” that specialized in figurines for the Nativity scenes that are very much a part of the Mexican culture. Most of the other figures were much more “traditional.” Indeed, this one was completely unique, representing a “perspective” I’d never seen before. Gazing at the face of the Mother, I was gripped by the thought: “This is Reality.” I reflected on my own extreme exhaustion after a 26-hour trip in a relatively comfortable bus, and wondered how a woman could have carried a nursing infant all the way from Israel to Egypt.

I felt it was very important to obtain this statuette, and bring her back to Atlanta to share with the various spiritual communities of which I am a part, including First Metropolitan Community Church of Atlanta and the Excel retreat ministry in which I participate. I christened her “Our Lady of Travels to Life with Reality,”or, in Spanish, “Nuestra Señora de los Viajes á la Vida con Realidad.” I believe that others who meditate on the meaning portrayed by this representation may experience some of the same thoughts that have come to me. There is, of course, much more to this story, and anyone who wants to dialog with me about it is welcome to contact me by e-mail at: tbarreras@bellsouth.net.

Sadly, when I attempted to share “Our Lady of Travels” with my own community at First MCC of Atlanta by placing the statue in our small meditation chapel, someone was apparently offended by the breast-feeding, and fashioned a “poncho” for her out of Kleenex! My pastor regretfully suggested that I should probably take her home. Fortunately, most of the other venues to which I have brought this marvelously sensitive and realistic perspective of the mother of Jesus seem to have responded with a sense of blessing and not of shock.

Gay artist does inspiring Jesus art

Take Away the Cross by Dirk Vanden

A gay artist’s inspired paintings of a naked Jesus are the newest additions to the Jesus in Love library of glbt spiritual art.

The two images were painted by Dirk Vanden, who is also the author of three early gay novels.

Take Away the Cross shows Jesus dancing beneath a glorious sunburst in the midst of a cross. The crowd around Jesus includes portraits of Vanden’s friends, references to Michelangelo, and some of the artist’s favorite rock stars. Look for Buffy St. Marie, Janis Joplin, Paul McCartney, David Crosby, George Harrison, Gracie Slick, Neil Young, Neil Diamond, Paul Simon, John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

Ecce Homo (Jumping Jesus) leaps for joy, with wings that carry him into the sky. [Correction from the artist added Nov. 6, 2008: "That is his long hair, spread out behind him as he flies, not wings - & not up to heaven! If he's back, he's here to stay. Actually, in my head as I painted him, he's jumping with joy to be free of the cross."]

Vanden painted these pictures in 1971, but they are still fresh. Now the artist is busy putting his latest gay Jesus ideas online. Click here to read his reflections on “Is Jesus Gay?”

Ecce Homo (Jumping Jesus) by Dirk Vanden

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Kittredge Cherry blogs at the Jesus in Love Blog and edits the Jesus in Love Newsletter on queer spirituality and the arts. She offers GLBT and progressive spiritual resources at JesusInLove.org.