Pondering In the New Year

Christopher Santer, Pacem Studio

On the last Sunday of 2018, I heard a sermon that included a theme of Mary "pondering" things in her heart. And that, we in the West tend to forget the 12 Days of Christmas, putting the beautiful celebration of the Birth to rest on December 26.

So, I've been pondering about what it means to ponder.

The first thought that comes to mind is that we don't seem to put much emphasis or value on pondering. Blame who or what you will, it seems to be a dying art. It's almost as if you have to meditate to get yourself into the state of mind required.

Pondering takes attention. And this seems to be the age of attention deficit. Not so much in the medical/psychological sense, but in the literal, expressed in the simple inability to stay at attention. Speaking of which, Simone Weil had a lot to say about that (see her WAITING FOR GOD for further details).

Saturday I spent a few hours volunteering at a mailing bee. I struck up a conversation with a couple of folks around the table - both of whom work for the local public school system. We got to talking about how kids are learning a new way of doing math. Multiplication in particular. Which doesn't require memorization. (As in memorizing the dreaded multiplication tables.) On one level, I totally understand avoiding this exercise. On the other hand, not engaging in an activity that stimulates the part of the brain responsible for remembering sort of scares me.

The final thing that comes to mind is how pondering actually helps us put two and two together. For instance, last night I watched Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 11/9. There's a long bit, towards the middle of the film, where Moore makes the point that Rick Snyder, Michigan's current governor, is a lot like our current president. Moore uses the example of how the state of Michigan woefully mishandled and then unabashedly lied about the Flint water crisis as a precursor to the current president's love of falsehood.

Point being: What happens when a society looses its collective memory?

Ironically, one of the main points of WAITING FOR GOD is public education, and the power of attention, Weil wrote "Most often attention is confused with a kind of muscular effort. If one says to one's pupils: 'Now, you must pay attention,' one sees them contracting their brows, holding their breath, stiffening their muscles. If after two minutes they are asked what they have been paying attention to, they cannot reply. They have been concentrating on nothing. They have not been paying attention. They have been contracting their muscles."

Which brings us back to Sunday's sermon and Mary. 

TruthAngel - Wordpress.com

At a fairly young age she had been told some astonishing news (that she was going to be the mother of Jesus). I wonder what Mary's response to Gabriel would have been if she had not already been in the habit of pondering? 

Even before Jesus' birth, Mary had pondered enough to give us the beautiful Magnificat (starting in Luke 1:46).

“My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
  for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.
For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
  for he who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
  And his mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
  He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;
  he has brought down the mighty from their thrones
and exalted those of humble estate;
  he has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty."

Happy New Year everyone!