Joy is costly, but it is worth it. We choose joy when we go \u201call in\u201d\u009d with our love, knowing that pain will be a necessary part of it. As Wendell Berry so beautifully puts it in his poem, The Way of Pain, \u201cby pain we learn the extremity of love.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
We see love and pain in Heidi Petersen\u2019s All Our Sorrows. With its bust of Mary in a ponderous pose (perhaps the \u201cponderings\u201d\u009d of Luke 2), surrounded by the thorns her son would one day wear as a crown, this work embodies the sort of melancholy joy that is the alchemy of love and loss and hope and fear.<\/p>\n
When I contemplate the visage of Mary in this work, as I listen to the song \u201cChristmas Mourning\u201d\u009d by J.A.C. Redford, I almost picture Mary as a mother of a large family, on Christmas night. She\u2019s standing at the sink alone, looking down at the dishes she scrubs in the wake of the day\u2019s Christmas feast. Her young sons have all gone to bed, exhausted by the frivolity of the day: stockings, candy, presents, games, snowball fights, turkey, pie, play. In the quiet of the night, herself exhausted, this mom\u2019s heart is full of pondering.<\/p>\n