Refractions

You were not the first, were you,  to trust the life of one just born,  to let that be  what bids you end with hope?  Still, how did you know the deeper thing?  How did you recognize this weak-and-needing One  as strong enough  to bear the weight  of your own falling life?  Were you bathed in light,  enough light for a whole world?  And did it come from those two eyes,  seeing you so brightly against the gloom of age?  Is what you saw so clearly,  through dim eyes and temple smoke,  the not-so-distant crisis  when this baby’s wounded hands  would carry us, whose souls are pierced – you, Anna, Mary, all creation –  home? (For the Feast of the Presentation, February 2)

How do we know at all?  Is knowing just the firing of synapses,  objective jolts that organize  electrons into truth?  Or can we also know from foolish stories,  that cross through seas and centuries  and land upon our hearts,  the stories that our broken hearts collect?  What is it softens hearts to breaking open,  that readies us to know, by open hearts,  another sovereignty, another realm –  one ruled by healing, gentleness and beauty,  by weakness that is strength misunderstood,  and folly that is wisdom, after all?  Epiphany begins among the shadows:  deep darkness, ominous gifts, the smoke of prayer;  a crown of gold and then a crown of thorns;  myrrh for anointing – holiness and death.  The story that is grief is in our path,  that tells of crosses, tombs and tears and love,  in which appears the shape of our redemption that makes its way into our softened hearts and carries us a...

“Here is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1.29)  “He drew me up from the desolate pit, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure.” (Psalm 40.2)  "It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth." (Isaiah 49.6)  “We are all just walking each other home.” (Baba Ram Das)  Walking Home It is not sins but sin the Lamb subtracts:  the math is singular, the sin is one  sin of the world:  a broken shadow over us,  that breaks us hard and sharp against each other;  a sucking bog beneath us miring us –  to push and grab and groan against each other,  who should be friends and neighbours walking home.  No light thing, this taking sin away,  not just for some by birth or creed or nation:  if chosen, no...

The young man stands on the east side of the river, expectant within an expectant crowd, eyes fixed on his cousin as he leads one person after another from east to west through the ancient waters. Who could not hear the echoes of Joshua and Elisha as John leads the people through the brackish water to inhabit the land in a renewed and renewing response to the way of the Liberator. (No wonder it draws hostility from the temple and the court.) Joshua led a nation through this water to a land in which – they promised – they would follow the way of the Liberator. Elijah and Elisha crossed out of the land, and Elisha returned alone, both of them part of a long struggle against prophets of other gods who made shiny promises to that nation, to that people.   And now the young man watches as his cousin takes his turn in the witness of the prophets. The shiny idolatrous things are once more on offer from the establishment, the temple and the court: to make peace with the prince, with C...

  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.