The Encounters of Three Women

Last November, Graham and I traveled to Boston for a fall weekend getaway. We wanted to go to a museum while we were there, and received many recommendations to visit the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. It did not disappoint. Jack and Isabella Gardner dreamed of opening a museum in their native Boston. When Jack died in 1898, the widow went ahead with museum construction and the museum opened to the public in 1903.

Two things struck me when we visited: 

The curation is a masterpiece. The way in which Gardner personally placed every piece in the museum, mixing artists, cultures and centuries in the same room is incredible. It made me think about art and artifacts in a way I never had before. 

Her extensive collection of the Madonna and Child was deeply impactful. In fact, Mary and the Christ Child are found a whopping 32 times in the museum. Gardner was obviously drawn to these two figures. Why, I wondered? After the trip, I learned that the couple struggled to have children; their son, Jackie, died before his second birthday. 

Gardner collected these depictions of mother and child out of her own grief. What began as appreciation for her collection became something deeper as I realized that every likeness of Mary and Jesus was an opening to the darkness that marked the death of a child. 

A few weeks ago, my oldest daughters and I watched Hamnet, the Academy Award nominated film portraying the life of Shakespeare. Agnes, Shakespeare’s wife, played by Jessie Buckley, is another woman grappling with the loss of a child. If you've seen the movie, you no doubt remember the final scene—Agnes moves toward her grief, an encounter that seems to blur the boundaries of space and time, and invites those around her to join. The child, Hamnet, once known only to his family becomes someone who, now for generations, is a story familiar to the world—Hamlet.

Isabella Stewart Gardner and her incredible collection of Madonnas. 

Mary the mother of Jesus who stays near the cross. (John 19:25-27). 

Agnes who inspires an entire audience to reach out in a communal expression of grief.

What can we learn from these women except that we are not alone in our sorrows, great or small, that grief expressed is grief moved through, and that God "comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” 2 Corinthians 1:4

Wherever sorrow lies for you today, on behalf of yourself or someone else, know that it is held by God, and by us, your pastors, as we pray for you.