Icon of the Holy Silence

One icon writing class and I am obsessed. I can't stop looking at or searching out icons. I will post more later about my experience in the class (it was wonderful--better than I could ever imagine)as I am still processing but wanted to share this morning's discovery now.

As best as I can understand, this icon is from the 18th century (Russian). It is known as The Holy Silence (or Hagia Hesychia). It portrays Christ before he became incarnate "and was made man." It stopped me in my morning Google ramble because it shows Christ as a woman. Which also makes sense since this icon is known as Holy Wisdom sometimes. And Wisdom is often referred to with feminine pronouns(or the Greek name Sophia).

But gazing at this icon today I thought about how all our boundaries and divisions barricade us into making God so small. As a woman, my heart sang to think about Christ as so fully me and me as so fully Christ--no gender boundaries, no boundaries at all.

The Holy Silence...or maybe in more colloquial terms:
Shhh! Jesus is a girl!

An interesing link...