'I am my own and not my own'.

I’d love to introduce you to a poem by Thom Gunn,  ‘Jesus and his Mother’.  I found it over 50 years ago in Sam Read’s bookshop in Grasmere, surely one of the most beautifully-sited in Britain!  I had no real idea what it was about, as I was only 17, but the words, the rhythms, the repetitions, the images….!  They were so compelling they have never left me, and only now am I on the way to absorbing their impact.

You might like to look at the poem here……

Jesus and his Mother

My only son, more God’s than mine,

Stay in this garden ripe with pears.

The yielding of their substance wears

A modest and contented shine,

And when they weep with age, not brine

But lazy syrup are their tears.

‘I am my own and not my own’.

He seemed much like another man,

That silent foreigner who trod

Outside my door with lily rod:

How could I know what I began

Meeting the eyes more furious than

The eyes of Joseph, those of God?

I was my own and not my own.

And who are these twelve labouring men?

I do not understand your words:

I taught you speech, we named the birds

You marked their big migrations then

Like any child. So turn again

To silence from the place of crowds.

Why are you sullen when I speak?

Here are your tools, the saw and knife

And hammer on your bench. Your life

Is measured here in week and week

Planed as the furniture you make,

And I will teach you like a wife

To be my own and all my own.

Who like an arrogant wind blown

Where he may please, needs no content?

Yet I remember how you went

To speak with scholars in furred gown.

I hear an outcry in the town;

Who carries that dark instrument?

‘One all his own and not his own’.

Treading the green and nimble sward

I stare at a strange shadow thrown.

Are you the boy I bore alone,

No doctor near to cut the cord?I

cannot reach to call you Lord,

Answer me as my only son.

‘I am my own and not my own’.

Thom Gunn’s poem shows us the encounter between Jesus and Mary when he has  told her of his sense of destiny and that their family life can no longer continue as it has been.  He is on the move, and must leave her.

Mary is distraught, and offers all the sensible arguments as to why he should stay in his old life.  She speaks much more than he, and we are just aware of his “sullen” presence.  This is so deeply human. How does a loving son counter the reasonable pleas of a devoted mother?  He knows well just how much he is demanding of her - what is there to say to justify his departure?  In essence, only one thing.  He does not belong to himself, or, by implication, to his mother.  He has merged his will into that of God.  This recalls the difficult Luke 14:26 verse;  “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father, mother, wife, children, brothers, and sisters, as well as his own life, he can’t be my disciple.”  “Hate” now carries a rather different meaning; Jesus is suggesting more that attachment to family must not outstrip attachment to God, otherwise it becomes ‘inordinate’, or inappropriate and wrong, in the Ignatian sense.  But for Mary, that loving attachment between mother and son once was ‘ordinate’ - right and healthy - when he was young, and it is very hard to accept he has moved on.  It’s a really difficult verse even taking into account the semantic weakening of  ‘hate’. 

The refrain, adapted slightly across the different stanzas, “I am my own and not my own”, is spare, enigmatic even.  It is the best way Jesus can express the nature of his relationship with God his Father.  He accepts it and owns it.  Mary entreats her son to settle for a comfortable and conventional life, “Stay in this garden ripe with pears.”  We can sense the mellow sunshine of autumn and relish the “lazy syrup” of the sweet fruit, their “yielding”, just as she wills him to yield to her reasoning.  But it can never be, for the first line admits he is “My only son, more God’s than mine”. Mary already knows the future, and it’s not voluptuous pear juice but “brine”, or tears, which will mark out his life from now on.

This difficult crisis-point takes Mary back thirty years to recall vividly her own encounter with the will of God.  Hardly out of childhood, it must have been unsettling enough for her to leave home and prepare for marriage to Joseph, and then…  How terrifying, yet thrilling, it must have been when the angel visited her,  “That silent foreigner who trod / Outside my door with lily rod.”  She responded , incurring human wrath, and so started the chain of events which led her to this acutely painful point now.  But she has known deep-down the nature of this massive ‘yes’ to God, as she admits that she too,  yielded, so that she “was my own and not my own.”  

Mary foresees a chilling future for Jesus, without fully comprehending its meaning, and  demands to know of him,

“And who are those twelve labouring men?”  Her bargaining chip is their shared life of contentment and predictability, and her maternal devotion.  “I taught you speech, we named the birds”,  “Here are your tools, the saw and knife” .  We may feel she puts unfair pressure on Jesus, pleading a shade too possessively as more than a mother,

“And I will teach you like a wife,

To be my own and all my own”

Mary’s frustration betrays a flash of anger with her son,

“Who like an arrogant wind blown

Where he may please, needs no content?”

She is triggered back to a similar episode, when the child Jesus went missing for days, driving her and Joseph crazy with worry before they found him conversing with the priests, replying simply that he was about his Father’s business.   How hurtful that must have been to Joseph!,

“Yes, I remember how you went

To speak with scholars in furred gown.”

Thom Gunn ratchets up her unease as she too, dimly at first, identifies Jesus’ mission, and how it will end, perceiving the shadow of the cross.

“I hear an outcry in the town;

Who carries that dark instrument?

‘One all his own and not his own’.

Mary’s heart cracks as the full picture bears down on her.  For a final time she recalls the intimacy- and challenge- of their relationship,

“Are you the boy I bore alone,

No doctor near to cut the cord?

as she yields to the inevitable.  But she still doggedly keeps her motherly claim on Jesus, demanding, 

“I cannot reach to call you Lord,

Answer me as my only son.

“I am my own and not my own.”

Jesus’ implacable answer remains the same.  There is no swerving his path.  We learn a great deal about Mary’s feelings, but very little about his, except, perhaps that he is preparing even now to yield to his destiny.

Explorations

• What would it mean for you to be “your own and not your own”?  

• What claims has God made on your life so far?  How are you aware there might be others still to be realised as you “come home” to your Self?  Are these exciting?  Uncomfortable?  What might you need to leave behind?

• When have you resisted the claims which God has placed upon you?  How did that leave you feeling?

• Are there any ways that you are like Mary in this poem, partly understanding and partly denying the call of God in your own life?  

     How do we see both the humanity and the divinity of Jesus in this 

     situation?   What emotions does Thom Gunn arouse in you towards him?

     Love?    Fear?     Awe?

All blessings,  Valerie

September 2025