Don't call for an intervention yet, most women are baby head addicts. We're built that way. I looked it up, and there are all kinds of pheromones coming off of my new guy's noggin that light up all the pleasure centers in my brain. It makes me want to hold him and smell him and just spend all day doing nothing but being his mom. (It's why I've neglected the blog. Sorry.) It's a pretty cool thing God designed there. Make baby holding a pleasurable experience for any woman who gets near the baby and you pretty much guarantee that the little guy is taken care of. My sweet husband just shakes his head when women take a big ol' sniff of #6. I guess watching a bunch of women getting high just isn't his thing.
We sniff our children. All women do. We breathe them in. For the whole of their lives we inhale deeply and then sigh whenever they are in our arms. I've seen elderly women clutch their middle aged sons and fill their lungs with the smell of their no-longer-little boys. These mothers are bonded to their children. Just the smell of her children can make a woman smile. It's a weird admission, but we sniff them.
Perhaps that's why the Pieta has been bothering me so much lately. I'm collecting art work to study this year and I keep coming back to this picture I have of Michelangelo's masterpiece.
I've read the theology of it, and studied carefully why it is sculpted the way that it is. I know that the Blessed Mother is displaying the body of her son to the world which is responsible for his death. We are meant to share in her sorrow and each other's guilt. It is a beautiful and haunting image. And it's wrong.
No mother would hold her dead child this way. She would not put him on display like a peddler with his wares. She would not haphazardly hold him as he slides off her lap.
She would clutch him to her. She would press his no-longer-tiny body as close to herself as she could get him. She would bury her nose into his neck and breathe deeply of him one last time. As her tears fell upon his face and streaked his cheek, she would inhale and smell one last time the particular scent of her little boy. It would not be a moment for all the world to see; it would be an intensely private and personal one between a mother and her beloved son. No matter how beaten, no matter how bloody, no matter how awful he appeared to other people, she would still need to hold him close and have him be, for one last moment, her baby.
15 comments:
I guess I never thought about it. But you are right. We middle aged women do hold our sons tight. And, Mary would have held her so that way, too.
You know, I agree with you wholeheartedly. Something has always struck me as odd about Pieta, and I think you've pinpointed it.
I like to smell baby heads too...
Alright, you have gone and made me start crying!
Love, Suzanne
What a heartfelt and sincere post. Well done, TM.
Beautiful
(I too personally like baby necks.)
Beautiful reflection. I love sniffing baby heads, too :-) I think Mary is holding him as an offering to the Father. She knows He is not hers to have. Just my thoughts...
I'm crying, too. Great post.
A Beutiful reflection. However, Michaelangelo did get it right, because as you said " ... it would be an intensely private and personal one between a mother and her beloved son. "
The position depicted, is that of Mary holding him as an offering to the Father. She knows He is not hers to have.
That's why I always smell babies heads!!! Pray for me...count down+ +JMJ+
i love baby head scent. i love baby's breath too(not bottle fed). i LOVE LOVE LOVE baby head scent that is freshly baptized and annointed with chrism. that scent is incredible.
There's a story of Sherman burning his way through Georgia. He literally burned everything in his path, 50 miles wide. But one women stood stopping his rape of the South.
She stood blocking him at the steps of a large and grande Southern home. She said to him that he was not allowed to burn it; the woman's daughter had just given birth and would need to have shelter until she recovered.
Sherman (a cuss of a man) demanded to see the baby. The Grandmother brought out the babe.
The General knocked the dust of the road off his coat and stepped off his horse.
He held the baby close, and smelled the newborn's head.
He didn't burn the home.
TM,
I thought you would find this of interest -- http://insidecatholic.com/Joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6812&Itemid=48
Who knew I was such a woman-hater?
A sincere thank you to you for "getting it".
BTW, I tried a number of times to post on the article in question, but for whatever reason, my comment wouldn't get accepted.
Interesting, no?
TM,
They banned me from "Inside Catholic". Anyhow, you covered my six, and I won't forget that anytime soon.
If there is ANTHING I can ever do for you, just say the word... I'm there.
Aw, this is sweet, and right on the money. But you failed to mention that it's not just women who can be addicted to this lovely scent coming off our small babes.
Because my older brother (now in his 30's) is addicted to sniffing my babies, too... =)
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