Refractions

  Gold   What happened to the gold the magi brought?  Did it make the journey into Egypt  sewn into the lining of a coat?  Perhaps it paid the passage  for the little family  running for its life.  What if the Roman prefect  built a border wall?  Would gold have let a border agent look the other way,  or paid a guide to open up a  passage into hope?  What happened to the gold the magi brought?  For now we only know the child is safe.  For now.  Frankincense   We spoon our fragrant resin onto  glowing charcoal in the thurible –  and swing, and sweetness drifts  across and through the room.  Borne on the fragrance,  something in us rises  to meet Something in the space around, above us,  some Beauty that heals,  some Truth that sustains,  some Spirit that breathes on the reed of our lives,  and they sing, our lives, they sing.  This is the gift they...

This frightened king, unsettled by the words of Persian pilgrims,  and terrified of the usurping toddler,  sets about his own transcendent terror,  infanticide,  a moat of murdered children  protecting his dominion.   He’s doing what kings do, and emperors,  and presidents, and titans of – whatever.  So, founded on footings of fear and murdered children,  the illusion sticks to the back of our eyes, the conviction trains the shape of our hearts   to expect… …nothing else.  In no time at all  “good news for all the people”  has become a maddening spoor for Herod’s frenzied dogs,  savage and hungry for innocents.  So it begins: the traverse of eternal confrontation –  death’s power and love’s authority –  across the landscape of a single life.  Death governing, ascendent,  love a refugee, hunted.  It is not starting well.

Every Child Immanuel (Advent 1A)  Odd, how the promise of later peace  comes just before annihilation – the tumbling of temple  into Babylonian dust.  Odd how the prophet speaks comfort  as the reckoning beast approaches.  Odder still, how Matthew writes a writhing, wrecked creation  as a plummet into hope – there is One-who-will-return,  who carried creation's violence to a cross,  wore its wounds into a room filled with fear,  will return to bear it to a tree of life  for its healing – for the healing of the nations.  Why do You wait so long,  as cities turn to rubble,  bodies to compost,  and the powerful fashion crosses  for another and another generation?  This is the world.  If the best the luckiest can do  is to cover ourselves with unearned advantage,  and cower into privilege,  what is to become of the unlucky,  with no camouflage of privilege,  no gospel of prospe...

Trapped – in bubbles, not in amber,  watching our partisan cable networks,  talking in code, not language,  antagonist neighbours, intimate enemies,  clutching at pixels and jingos to save our lives.  It was like this before – when one-before-One came to say,  “Repent”,   to say, “change your minds”,  say, “shed your bubbles”,  say, “deep Beauty is so close, so close –  is just a bubble-skin away.”  Leave your bubble, wash it off in water!  Stand in an old – and Ancient – river place,  in a new – and Ancient – way.  Re-enter – like Elisha – the land.  Cross – like Joshua – the river.  Intend – like Amos – justice.  And the Snakes?  The brood of urbane bubble-guardians  protecting the wash-starved world from threats of water?  This one-before-One tells them,  “You can flee the broken future,  and live like washed-off people,  unbubbled and new-minded!”  All these t...

Every Child Immanuel (For Advent 1, Year A )  Odd, how the promise of a later peace  comes just before annihilation –  a tumbling of temple into Babylonian dust .  Odd how the prophet utters comfort  as the reckoning beast approaches.  Odder still, how g ospel frames a writhing, wrecked creation  as a plummet into hope –  there is One-who-will-return ,  who bore violence to a cross,  wore wounds into a room filled with fear,  will portage us to a tree of life for our healing –  for the healing of nations .  Why do You wait so long,  as cities turn to rubble,  bodies to compost,  as the powerful fashion crosses for another and another generation?  This is the world, and if the best the luckiest can do  is cover ourselves with unearned advantage,  or cower into privilege,  what is to become of the unlucky,  with no patina of privilege,  no gospel-racket of divine protection?...

The ashes on our forehead might be last year’s burned palms.   Or wildfires - burned Lytton, LA, Athens.  Or war-blacked cities, Mariupol, London, Dresden, Hiroshima,  smouldering remains of commerce, purpose, neighbours, love.  The ashes on our forehead, horror, memory –  the kilns of Auschwitz, Phnom Penh’s killing fields,  napalm, charred bones of village, burning child.  Caught in the sin of the world, in its leg-hold trap,  gnawing our leg,  self-consuming,  burning our home: making ashes  even of ourselves.