Why Is Jesus Not Enough? Why Do We Want Mary?

Here is an observation. The forms of Christianity that have all the answers do not do devotion to Mary. The forms of Christianity that dive deep or even just play around the edges of Mary embrace mystery.

Have I got that right?

I like detective mysteries. But they are not really mysteries, are they? They are puzzles. Maybe out of the chaos of my childhood comes this deep satisfaction when I can solve a puzzle, when something makes sense.

But when somebody explains a theological question, solves a God puzzle, I immediately think they have missed something. As far as God goes, I really don't know much about it. Oh, I understand the God-talk. I can recognize a heresy when I see it and can follow the logic to its behavioral consequences. But answers kind of bore me.

There is another way of expressing two different kinds of Christianity.

The first views redemption as a transaction that took place on the cross. Lots of words go into explaining this view. When so many of them are spent defending God's own character, I grow suspicious.

The second identifies redemption with the Incarnation. That's something that happened inside a girl's belly. Ponder that! Not much to say - we just have to sing it.

Okay, now my brain is swinging over to a current theme on mental health Twitter. Mental health students and professionals with lived experience (meaning that they themselves have a mental illness) are viewed with suspicion by professionals whose experience is lacking. Is this the same thing that's going on in religion? That women, who have lived experience of the Marion mystery of incarnation (bearing another life in our own bellies,) are viewed with suspicion by men, who do not?