A Morning Walk with Martha and Mary
Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”
Luke 10:38–42
Many mornings, particularly if the rain has stayed away and I don’t have an early meeting or train to catch, I take a little walk. I climb the hill behind my house, winding between streets of brick terraces, to the service station on the summit, where I buy a coffee and a cake for breakfast. Then I stroll along to the cemetery where there is a bench that I sit on and consume my meal, before returning home, past the pub and onto the 1960s council estate where I have my home. It is not a long walk, but it puts me in a good mood for the day ahead and knocks about three thousand steps off that daily ten-thousand target.
The story of Jesus visiting Martha and Mary is only short, but it has been the cause of great reflection and debate over the centuries since Christ told it. What does He mean when he says that Mary has chosen the better part? And what does this signify for our own lives?
When walking the Camino in 2021, I fell in with an Italian pilgrim who was much concerned with the tale. By chance, at the very same time, I was read ‘The Cloud of Unknowing’, a 14th century mystical work which also takes the tale as its basis. We talked long and hard about how we interpreted and the answer we came up with is this:
Martha and Mary are all of us, particularly our female aspects. They represent the two paths in life. Martha is the practical path, working on those chores, physical often, that are required to sustain daily existence. Mary, on the other hand, signifies spirituality and reflection. She recognises that the Saviour is in her very home and so takes time to sit, listen and reflect.
My pilgrim friend agreed wholeheartedly, but then lamented with Piedmontese passion, “All my life I have wanted a Mary, but I only ever find Marthas! Why is this?”
I had to agree; my own life has been plagued with the same dilemma. But why? Perhaps because there are far fewer Marys out there, because the spiritual is so often ignored or ridiculed in our day and age, whilst hard work and materialism are lauded?
Or perhaps we just don’t see the Mary when she is before us.
On my little morning walk, I am privileged to meet both. Not physically, but in another sense. I may say hello to a neighbour of course, and I always chat with the lady in the bakery at the service station, but that is not what I mean.
The area where I live is not what most people would regard as beautiful, desirable, or even special. It is no estate agent’s dream. But, if you search among the undergrowth, all three abound and much more besides. As I walk through the cemetery, I can hear the songs of birds and smell the vegetation. I can also pause and read some of the inscriptions on the graves — glimpses into lives taken too early or too late, of mothers and husbands, daughters and grandfathers. Of scrap metal dealers, pottery workers, soldiers, and authors.
The seat that I always sit in, I chose for a reason. It stands next to the grave of one Enoch Arnold Bennett. He’s our local literary star and one of my favourite authors of all time. Despite being separated in life by almost a century, his books have the power to make me laugh, ponder, wonder and cry. He bridges the gap between my world and his, worlds that share the same physical streets and houses, but are alien in so many other ways. Arnold Bennett was a Mary, a man committed to reflection and to telling stories, giving us a glimpse into very human lives so similar to our own. Despite us never meeting physically, like Mary with Jesus, I sat and listened at his feet, and he inspired me to write myself.
And then, when I have finished my food, I get up and leave. I walk out of the cemetery and past the pub. It’s not a special looking place, almost identical similar to all those bland brick temples of bonhomie that were built on every council estate after the war. Its name though is the ‘Green Star’. That, however, is not its original moniker. Formerly it was known as ‘La Verda Stelo’, which also means ‘Green Star’, but in Esperanto. For the pub was built as tribute to Dr. Ludwik Zamenhof, a Polish-Jewish ophthalmologist who created Esperanto, the international language. On the wall, there’s a monument to Zamenhof himself, in the shape of a large green star, the symbol of the language.
Zamenhof invented Esperanto, an easy-to-learn language for all men and women, because:
‘The place where I was born and spent my childhood gave direction to all my future struggles. In Białystok the inhabitants were divided into four distinct elements: Russians, Poles, Germans, and Jews; each of these spoke their own language and looked on all the others as enemies. In such a town a sensitive nature feels more acutely than elsewhere the misery caused by language division and sees at every step that the diversity of languages is the first, or at least the most influential, basis for the separation of the human family into groups of enemies. I was brought up as an idealist; I was taught that all people were brothers, while outside in the street at every step I felt that there were no people, only Russians, Poles, Germans, Jews, and so on. This was always a great torment to my infant mind, although many people may smile at such an ‘anguish for the world’ in a child. Since at that time I thought that ‘grown-ups’ were omnipotent, so I often said to myself that when I grew up I would certainly destroy this evil.’
Dr. Zamenhof, in a letter to Nikolai Borovko, c. 1895
Zamenhof was a Mary. He was an idealist. He dreamt of a better world, where all people could be equal brothers and sisters. His attempt to make that a reality was to create an easy and flexible language that would serve as a universal second language, to foster world peace and international understanding, and to build a “community of speakers”.
It is fair to say that Esperanto as a dream has failed. Today, it’s speakers number the hundreds of thousands rather than millions. But the vision remains valid and, like Bennett, Zamenhof has enriched and changed our world.
I walk on, along Esperanto Way before turning onto Community Drive. The blossoms on the trees here in spring are so beautiful, that they warm my heart every time I look at them. Then, finally, at the corner of Community Drive and Zamenhof Grove, I turn towards my little house and start my day’s toils, invigorated, inspired.
But what of Martha you may say? Mary, we have heard about, but where did you encounter Martha on your stroll? Well, every day I stop to pick up any discarded plastic bottles I see, so that I can put them in the recycling, a tiny act of care of clearing up for the environment.
And that coffee and cake. Well, someone put in their time, effort, and love to make them.
Martha was present all along too.
Written Smallthorne, UK, 27/05/2022
Copyright © 2022, Matthew E. Pointon