“A Biblical Definition: Woman” a poem by Mia Day-Galizzi
By Mia Day-Galizzi
The first time I heard the word “trailblazer,”
I was fifteen & it was in the form of an award—given
to Emma Stone for her performance in the movie,
The Help. It’s funny to me now, as a midtwenty-year-old woman who was raised on honey
suckle vines & sweet tea & Jesus Christ that the first
time I heard about a woman being a trailblazer, it was a movie
star and not someone like my mother or the Virgin
Mary or Mary Magdalene or Virgina Apgar or Saint Brigid.
A pioneer, an innovator: the definition surprises me now because
that’s one of my favorite poets, Maya Angelou & that’s Amelia
Earhart & Georgia O’Keefe & Michelle Obama & my fourthgrade teacher & the pastoral assistant at my church & my best
friend who saved me from suicide & Joan
of Arc & the woman to stand by Jesus through every
turn He made. How have I heard & learned so much about
Emmanuel & so little about the first person to witness His resurrection?
Someone like me & all my heroes—a woman.
The world stopped revolving on its axis when the Messiah
was born & it kept pausing every time He performed a miracle, every
time He was tested & won the battles & the world stopped in time
when He was sacrificed so we could be saved but there is a piece
to that picture that cannot be forgotten—a woman standing
at His feet. She chanted His name, prayed
to God & continuously worshipped the Son
of Man saving the world one drop of blood at a time.
Mary Magdalene was more than a witness,
though. She was a point to be made in the Bible—women
are heroes, women harvest the shoulders that provide rest
for this world. A woman’s lips were parting during the moments between
Hosanna’s final breaths & a woman will always be a representation in history,
in the Bible for what it means to be misunderstood by the world
but understood by the only perfect person—the Lord of all.
History likes to chase powerful women in circles with dishonest
words & false expressions to minimize their impact but it is our
responsibility—the women of today—to not only remember
but honor the women who came before us. The women who helped
change the world, the people that overcame & gave us priceless examples
of what it looks like to fight the good fight—the warriors, the disciples,
the leaders, the trailblazers.
