Advent 2024 : 19

 

For five months, Elizabeth keeps her pregnancy secret. This is not confinement – when everybody knows, and social conventions come into play to make room for the expectant mother to prepare and then, for some time after giving birth, bond with her baby. This is concealment – no one can find out, for fear of envy (Mary was not the only woman with fertility issues) or miscarriage. And this meant hiding in plain sight – Elizabeth cannot afford any out of the ordinary action that might betray her condition to her neighbours. She goes about her business, as silent on the matter of her pregnancy as her situationally mute husband.

Five months of carrying a secret, five months of hiding in plain sight (the freeze response to fear) requires a hyper-vigilance that takes its toll on the body. After five months, it is a relief and a release to move, in such a way that your camouflage no longer blends perfectly with the background. To be out in the open, where, in fact, you were all along. Now Mary can come, quickly and purposefully, to her relative. Now Elizabeth can step into a safe space where she can relax. Where she can give to her body the love that it deserves, and her attention fully to the miracle unfolding within.

And what of you? Looking back over the last five months – say to late July 2024 – what secret fear have you carried in your flesh and bones, leaping across synapses and putting muscle fibres under strain? Now may be the time to let go. To pass up on the additional burden of social expectations – of presents to buy and parties to attend and relatives to visit – and to enter into a holy confinement. To return to your own body, as the snow melts into the ground.

To come home.