Our Lady of the Lost and Found

One of the books I am currently reading is Our Lady of the Lost and Found by Diane Schoemperlen. It was recommended to us by Canon Crummey, who taught a class on Rediscovering Mary that we attended last month. It's a story about a nonreligious middle-aged writer who is surprised when the Virgin Mary shows up in her living room. She invites Mary to stay for lunch, and it turns out that Mary is tired and in need of some R&R, so she ends up staying a whole week. The book is a clever blend of fiction and history, philosophy and mythology.

I haven't ever known much about the veneration of Mary and other saints. As I read stories about the bodies of saints being exhumed to find parts or all of them undecayed and to find that such artifacts are on display in museums today around the world, it's starting to make more sense to me. I think I've always been told that sightings of Mary were either imagined or demonic in nature, but now I don't think that's true.

It's all very interesting to look at on the heels of reading Dance of the Dissident Daughter by Sue Monk Kidd last fall. The Divine Feminine seems to be everywhere and I can't help wondering about how Mary connects to it. Canon Crummey said that in the early centuries of the church, Mary was a key part of evangelizing to goddess-worshippers. Kind of like a 'I say to-may-to, you say to-mah-to' kind of exchange. I love this part on Our Lady of the Lost and Found's book jacket:

An absorbing and inventive novel that redifines our notions of fiction and noniction, Our Lady of the Lost and Found is an inspiration to believers and nonbelievers alike. Perhaps its greatest achievement is that through the narrator's touching friendship, we learn as much as she does. We come to understand that in our desire to believe in something larger than ourselves, it is our own doubt and uncertainty that make us perfect candidates for faith.