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Today (Friday still as I haven’t gone to bed yet) I had an hour to myself to wander around the city as Bryce and Ken and Gillian went on the Scotch Malt Whisky Heritage Tour. On a student budget the 6.50 GBP price for each (student discounted) ticket was a bit steep - especially as I don’t like whiskey really, so I opted out and weaved past spring tourists to the National Gallery of Scotland.

I feel in many ways Easter just crept up on me and I haven’t had much time to internalise and reflect upon the import of Christ’s death and his resurrection. So it was good to be alone for an hour in the stillness of the art gallery. I spent most of my time seated pondering Vermeer’s “Christ in the House of Mary and Martha” and tried to look anew at a familiar tale of the ‘good/quiet’ woman and the ‘busy’ woman. I wrote down a few feeble attempts at verse - something I have gotten out of the habit of, very unfortunately (I’ll try to post it soon). Probably being that today is Good Friday, the way Jesus seems to point towards Mary as one imagines he is in the act of reprimanding Martha seemed rather poignant as the hands which would hold nails a few years later. Jesus seemed to look saddened, patient, gracious, instructive and loving all at the same time. While Mary seemed transfixed almost to the point of boredom, I was really intrigued by Martha, with her hands inches away from the table with a basket of bread to serve to Jesus. She was right in the moment of service and the expression on her face seems one of quiet contemplation, that she is internalising her rebuke from Jesus; she is a Martha who has stopped for a moment (if only in the moment of the painting) and is carefully considering Jesus’ words; she is the Martha who confesses Jesus as the Christ, not the Martha we easily categorise as ‘too busy for Jesus’. Suddenly I realised it’s not entirely bad to be a Martha as long as we’re Mary too.

I don’t know really how to put it. I sort of felt my soul enlarged (or sort of like my spirit was beginning to breathe) being a Mary for a moment, sitting to ponder that painting, having it grow me, rather than Martha-like rushing through the gallery. Or in other words, my regular visits with paintings there are my equivalent to my sister-in-law’s trips to Crathes castle gardens at twilight through the flowers’ life cycles.

This entry was posted by Ashley on Saturday, March 26th, 2005 at 12:36 am. This entry was tagged with Literature, Living the Gospel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.