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.