Refractions

Now (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 Matthew 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 d...