kept their memories alive, and how did these stories influence the women who came after them? These are questions I longed to examine.
During the years of my travels for the Presiding Bishop’s Fund for World Relief (the relief and development arm of the Episcopal Church), I came face-to-face with poverty and suffering—of women and children—that broke my heart and shook my faith in a loving God. I went back to Scripture to find out how the people within its pages dealt with questions that arose out of suffering, confusion, persecution, the mores of the times, and the prejudices and ignorance of the ancient world. I found in the women’s stories much that sustained me and gave me strength to go on. It is these women, who gave me this strength, that you will meet in the monologues.
Each one of them visited me and spoke to me in her own way. These were not mystical experiences. Each monologue came out of reading the story, researching the related Scriptures, and then simply listening. Whenever I read about a woman in the Bible, I think, this is like shorthand. What else went on in this story? What is hidden here? These are a few of the questions I focus on, but above all I always ponder this one question: How would Lydia, Miriam, or Tamar tell this story in her own words? If any of them were interviewed by the writer, what would they remember? How would they express it? The personal story of each woman usually starts with a picture or with the first sentence playing itself in my mind. The rest comes easily. Since the time I first wrote about the Virgin Mary not as Theotokos, the mother of God, but as the wounded mother of a son who died young, I have not been able to read about any of the women in the Bible without hearing their voices. And I have rejoiced in hearing them speaking for themselves.
I do not approach these monologues as a biblical scholar. Many others have conducted detailed, academic explorations of the women of the Bible. What I hope to do here is add the sound of these women’s voices. I want their faithfulness, obedience, patience, strength, tenderness, and yes, even anger to shout and whisper through the words that were given to me. These monologues remain faithful to the biblical passages, but I have allowed my imagination to fill in the blanks.
I must stress that these stories arise from the whole panorama of Scripture, so it would be difficult to see them as part of a whole without some familiarity with both the Old and New Testaments. But the stories of these women can also be read singly, on a very intimate, personal level. So at the beginning of each monologue I have given the passages that pertain to the person telling the story. You may want to read the scriptural passages after you read the monologue. Reading them in a variety of different biblical translations may be illuminating. But don’t stop there. Search the chapters that come before and after, and you will be surprised by new insights simply because the story is told from a different perspective. A few women’s groups have used the Mary monologues as springboards for discussion in examining their own spirituality. I was so impressed by their comments that I decided to add questions at the end of each chapter for discussion. I hope you will find them helpful.
These monologues are written to be read aloud. Even when you are alone, read them aloud and hear the voices. What wealth of spiritual courage these women show. What instinctive understanding of the divine in their lives. Thanks be to God for them.
A Note on the Use of Names
I know that the use of Luke as the interviewer/listener in the monologues of the gospel women is probably not correct chronologically. However, I chose him for his understanding and kind treatment of women. I wanted a sympathetic listener, and Luke fits the role beautifully.
I have stayed with the pronunciation of the names found in the English translations of the Bible, except for places where the Greek version made more sense because the names are called by the speaker. Therefore, I have chosen to use the Greek version of the names for Mary (Mariam), Mark (Markos), and Peter (Petros).
A Word about Dramatic Monologues
Poetic dramatic monologues had a powerful influence in my life, and for that I owe thanks to Robert Browning and Professor R.N. Daniels of Furman University, who revealed Browning to me during a very impressionable semester of study when I was nineteen years old.
The dramatic monologues of Browning reveal character, and the drama in them, expressed only through the voice of the reader, strengthened my conviction that this was the best way for me to communicate the good news of God to others. My professors of speech and drama encouraged me in this.
So I studied what Browning did with his monologues and used portions of them in many of my own speeches. My faith in the incarnation was enlarged by Browning’s own magnificent affirmations at the end of some of his finest dramatic poems: “Kashish the Arab Physician,” “Cleon,” and “Saul.” In them, the speaker tells the story to a listener who never speaks but influences the course of the monologue with his silences or looks or even questions that no one else hears. Using only a few words, Browning lets us enter into the culture of that day, the speaker’s psyche, and the poet’s own convictions. So these monologues have many layers and subtleties.
ONE
To a Poor Girl, Such Promises!
MARY REMEMBERS THE COMING
All of the Gospel of Luke, specifically 1:26–56; 2:1–52
Matthew 1:18–25; 2:1–11
(The speaker is Mariam, the mother of Jesus, and the listener is the evangelist Luke.)
Yes, Brother Luke, I’ll answer your questions gladly Do sit with me a while then. Talking about his early years is my only comfort now. He has been gone from earth a long while. I miss the child he was. My old heart warms at the memory of his sweetness.
And you will write a book about him, you say, so you want “perfect understanding of all things from the very first”? Yes, I will help you. You are a learned man, beloved physician. They tell me your Greek is beautiful—you are a master of the language. But you must try to think like a Jew to understand me. Yes, write your book. Very few know his early years; even Markos1 did not touch upon them. Nobody really asked about them for a long while—not after the horror of the cross, and then the glory.
Let me warn you, I drift easily these days; my years are long. Soon I, too, will go to the Father. My days are numbered. Do not let me sleep. You are a busy man.
Where shall I begin? (She listens to Luke’s question.)
What did I think of during those days? The strange, scary birth, the smelly stable, and my beloved Joseph, all alone with no one to help him. Was I scared? Beloved physician! You know your science well, but you have never given birth. So how shall I explain? With all my other children, the pains seemed the same. But with him, the firstborn, even the pains were different; as though less eager was he to enter the world, yet more alive when he came than any infant I have ever seen.
A few hours before his birth, exhausted after the long journey from Nazareth, looking at Joseph, who could not find a room in the inn, and seeing his agony, I had wept at our aloneness. Was this the favor God had shown me? But afterward, when the Babe in my arms wept to enter this world, then lifted up his little hand and touched my own hot tears, I felt that rest, the peace that passes understanding, that our
