I hope you're having a peaceful, loving week. I'm scheduling this post ahead of time, amid all of the prep.

In case you missed it and want to get caught up on my Advent obsession with Mary (aka Miriam, the revolutionary): a quest to memorize the Magnificat; some surprising and enlightening truths about Mary; what Mary has to do with crushers of skulls.

In one of those beautiful coincidences, I was recently directed to this poem by writer and educator Adrienne Maree Brown. It's Mary and Yael and Judith, Sarai and Hannah, and it's a call to us. I'm so interested in your thoughts, here or IRL.

Let's go. Love you.

Summons
Aurora Levins Morales

Last night I dreamed

ten thousand grandmothers

from the twelve hundred corners of the earth

walked out into the gap

one breath deep

between the bullet and the flesh

between the bomb and the family.

They told me we cannot wait for governments.

There are no peacekeepers boarding planes.

There are no leaders who dare to say
every life is precious, so it will have to be us.

They said we will cup our hands around each heart.

We will sing the earth’s song, the song of water,

a song so beautiful that vengeance will turn to weeping,

the mourners will embrace, and grief replace
every impulse toward harm.  

Ten thousand is not enough, they said,

so, we have sent this dream, like a flock of doves

into the sleep of the world. Wake up. Put on your shoes. 

You who are reading this, I am bringing bandages

and a bag of scented guavas from my trees. I think

I remember the tune. Meet me at the corner.
Let’s go.

(The tune, I think, harmonizes with the tune of the Magnificat. xo)