“That one.” Eleanor didn’t even have to look at the window. Without even taking her eyes off Søren she pointed.
Søren looked at the window she’d indicated and then back at her.
“Are you sure of that?”
She nodded. “Yeah, it’s always been my favorite. I sit in the pew beneath it every time I come to church.”
Søren walked to the window and stared up at it. Eleanor stood next to him.
“It’s the story from Luke, right?” Eleanor asked. She’d looked up this story after she’d fallen in love with the window.
“Yes, Luke chapter seven. Christ was invited to dinner at the home of a Pharisee. A woman in the town who all knew to be a sinner came to Jesus and knelt at his feet. She anointed him with expensive oils. She bathed his feet with her tears, she dried them with her hair. An act of utter humility on her part. Humility and submission.”
“It’s so pretty,” Eleanor whispered, not knowing quite why she felt the need to lower her voice. Something about this window always made her feel reverent. The woman was draped in a purple robe, Christ a red one. The sinful woman, kneeling before Jesus, focuses only on Christ’s bare feet as she washes them. Two men sitting behind Jesus glare but Jesus looks at nothing and no one but the woman. “She looks so peaceful. You don’t think she’d be peaceful, right? I mean, she’s in public crying and sitting at this man’s feet while other people talk about her. I remember reading that the Pharisee guy told Jesus she was a sinner. And Jesus told him off. I don’t think she gives a fuck what that Pharisee said about her. Why should she care? Jesus was letting her wash his feet. I think that’s why she was crying. She was happy to be so close to him.”
“There’s a tradition in the church,” Søren began, his voice also low and reverent, “that it was Mary Magdalene who washed his feet with tears and dried his feet with her hair.”
“The prostitute?”
“She may not have been. The Bible doesn’t say, but church tradition has perpetuated that story.”
“I hope she was a prostitute.”
“Do you?” Søren sounded intrigued by her comment.
“It means more if she was a prostitute. I mean, this is Jesus, the guy who never committed any sins. He’s never even had sex, right?”
“There is no evidence he ever married so no, following Jewish law he would have been chaste, a virgin most likely, although he may have married young and been widowed. There’s little to no evidence of that, but it would account for why no one made any mention of his being unmarried, which in that day and age would have been considered highly bizarre for a Jewish man.”
“Jesus a widower?” Eleanor had never even considered the possibility.
“It’s one theory. Far more likely is that the miraculous circumstances of his birth led him to believe he would be called to perform a special mission for God. He remained unmarried for the same reason a soldier being sent into battle would remain unmarried. He knew one day he wouldn’t be coming home.”
“So Jesus was a virgin.”
“That would be my guess.”
“Poor guy.”
“There are far worse things in life than living without sex.”
“You know, I can’t think of a single bigger fuck-you to all those judgmental assholes than perfect, virginal Jesus Christ having a prostitute at his feet. It’s like saying ‘you can’t judge her without judging me. So judge me, I dare you.’”
“Safe to say our Lord was one of the first radical feminists. He constantly berated men who judged women. The woman with the alabaster jar. The woman with the issue of blood. The first person he spoke to after His resurrection was not Peter, but Mary Magdalene.”
“Jesus loved the ladies. I like that.”
“The more other men disparaged the woman, the more likely Jesus was to be kind to her.”
“So what does it mean that this is my favorite image? God wants me sitting at Jesus’s feet?”
“I think He wants you at someone’s feet.”
Søren turned his back to the window as if it hurt to look at it anymore. He wore a strange expression on his face, almost pained. He took a deep breath as if to steady himself, and soon he looked as peaceful as the woman in the window. Eleanor pulled a piece of paper from her back pocket.
“Got a pen?” she asked.
He took a pen from the missal holders at the back of the pew and handed it to her.
“Why do you need a pen?” he asked as she unfolded the paper.
“New question to ask you after Thanksgiving.”
“What’s the question?”