But when my mom asked me what I wanted for my 25th birthday a year and a half ago, I shocked her by saying all I wanted was a pair of bright pink Chuck Taylors. 

I’m not entirely sure when or why this obsession began.  I might have seen someone wearing a pair and been drawn to them.  Maybe I finally started warming up to pink.  Maybe it was all the Doctor Who I was watching.  All I know is I fell in love with the idea of having pink Chucks. 

So my very generous mother got them for me on my 25th birthday.  And I wore/continue to wear them everywhere. 

I wore them to seminary classes, when I spoke at chapel, and to my seminary graduation.  I wear them on date nights, while running errands, and when hanging out with my high school Sunday School group.  Those shoes make me feel more “me” than any other item of clothing I have. 

So what if they are considered by some to be the shoe of choice for the counter culture, a style of conformity for the non-conformists?  I love them.  They are comfy, bright, and stick out in a way that makes me want to be seen.  I feel most comfortable, excited, empowered, and ready to take on the world when I lace them up and walk out the door. 

So at choir practice last Wednesday, when I realized the upcoming Sunday was the Third Sunday of Advent, the Sunday of Joy and the lighting of the pink candle, and that we would be singing Mary’s Magnificat, I just had to wear those spunky shoes. 

But since I’m also a huge people pleaser, I had to ask my choir director if it was OK to do so. 

She smiled and nodded as she replied, “Yes.  Please wear them.” 

So I wore them to sing the Magnificat, in which Mary proclaims how she, a humble handmaiden, will be regarded as blessed throughout all generations, that God will upset the mighty systems of the rich and lift up the poor and oppressed.  And she sings this ballad after she accepts the dangerous call from God, delivered to her by an angel, to bear the Messiah into a dark world, and after an in-utero John the Baptist leaps inside Elizabeth’s womb. 

This is no schmaltzy ballad from Mary meek and mild.  This is a song of resistance, one which should strike terror in all the elite, belted from the pipes of a fierce female whom, of all the women in the world, God chose to bring the True Light into the world. 

When this was the song I was called to sing, the pink Chucks were the only shoes I could think of to wear.  They made me feel free, subversive, excited, and bold enough to do God’s work of upsetting the powerful, even if that meant upsetting structures from which I have long benefited.  I chose these shoes, because they were the color of joy, of the Advent candle and of my own joy in being myself, called to do God’s work, which Mary exemplified in her life and her song. 

Maybe Mary would have worn pink Chucks, too, as a display of her femininity and subversiveness for all to see, all that made her the woman God chose to bear Jesus into the world.  Maybe she would do this to demonstrate that girls of all ages and from all walks of life have fire in their souls that the world desperately needs.  Maybe she would lace up her pink Chucks and tell all the girls and women of the world that when the world tries to denounce their femininity as something less than, something to be violated and exploited, something that makes them “weak” and “meek,” they should show the world that being bold is a strong, feminine trait. 

Because we need all the emboldening we can get to proclaim justice and the upside-down kingdom of God into our own dark world.  And sometimes our proclaimation outfit is a pair of bright pink Chuck Taylors.