Poem (the spirit likes to dress up)

The spirit
likes to dress up like this:
ten fingers,
ten toes,

shoulders, and all the rest
at night
in the black branches,
in the morning

in the blue branches
of the world.
It could float, of course,
but would rather

plumb rough matter.
Airy and shapeless thing,
it needs
the metaphor of the body,

lime and appetite,
the oceanic fluids;
it needs the body’s world,
instinct

and imagination
and the dark hug of time,
sweetness
and tangibility,

to be understood,
to be more than pure light
that burns
where no one is –

so it enters us –
in the morning
shines from brute comfort
like a stitch of lightning;

and at night
lights up the deep and wondrous
drownings of the body
like a star.

              Mary Oliver

 

 

 

 

 

Well pleased

Gloria, Gloria! they cry, for their song embraces
all that the Lord has begun this day:
Glory to God in the highest of heavens!
And peace to the people with whom he is pleased!
And who are these people?
With whom does the good Lord choose to take his pleasure?
The shepherds.
The plain and nameless —
whose every name the Lord knows well.
You.
And me.

               Walter Wangerin Jr., Preparing for Jesus

 

 

 

 

Christmas Greetings

Imagine that you have been dead for a year, ten years,
one hundred years, a thousand years . . .

The grave and night have taken and kept you in that silence and dark
which says nothing and so reveals absolutely zero . . .

In the middle of all this darkness and being alone and bereft of sense,
let us imagine that God comes to your still soul and lonely body and says:

    "I will give you one minute of life.
    I will restore you to your body and senses for sixty seconds.
    Out of all the minutes in your life, choose one.
    I will put you in that minute and you will live again,
    after a hundred, a thousand years of darkness.
    Which is it?
    Think.
    Speak.
    Which minute do you choose?"

And the answer is:
    "Any minute. Any minute at all!
    Oh God, oh sweet Christ, oh Mystery,
    give me any minute in all my life."

And the answer further is:
    "When I lived I didn't know that every minute was special, precious,
    a gift, a miracle, an incredible thing, an impossible work, an amazing dream.
    But now, like Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas Morn,
    with snow in the air and the promise of rebirth given,
    I know what I should have known in my dumb shambles:
    that all is a lark, and it is a beauty beyond tears, and also a terror.

   "But I dance about, I become a child,
    I am the boy who runs for the great bird in the window,
    and I am the man that sends the boy running for that bird,
    and I am the life that blows in the snowing wind along the street,
    and the bells that sound and say live, love,
    for too soon will your name which is shaped in snow melt,
    or your soul which is inscribed like a breath of vapor on a cold glass pane fade.

     "Run, run, lad, run, down the middle of Christmas at the center of life!"

                                   Ray Bradbury, Christmas 2008

Welcome!

Our Druid ancestors
welcomed every child
with the words:
Here comes God again.

             Fr. John Cullen, Roscommon, Ireland 

 

 

 

 

 

Poverty and abundance

No one can celebrate a genuine Christmas
without being truly poor.
The self-sufficient, the proud,
those who, because they have everything,
look down on others,
those who have no need ever of God —
for them there will be no Christmas.
Only the poor, the hungry,
those who need someone to come on their behalf,
will have that someone.
That someone is God, Emmanuel, God-with-us.
Without poverty of spirit there can be no abundance of God.

                   Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Look out!

In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season;
the Christians called it 'Christmas' and went to church;
the Jews called it 'Hanukkah' and went to synagogue;
the atheists went to parties and drank.
People passing each other on the street would say
    'Merry Christmas!' or
    'Happy Hanukkah!'
or (to the atheists)
    'Look out for the wall!'

               Dave Barry, Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide

 

 

 

 

Song: The Rebel Jesus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbxrUtLOIZ0

All the streets are filled with laughter and light
And the music of the season
And the merchants' windows are all bright
With the faces of the children
And the families hurrying to their homes
While the sky darkens and freezes
Will be gathering around the hearths and tables
Giving thanks for God's graces
And the birth of the rebel Jesus

Well they call him by 'the Prince of Peace'
And they call him by 'the Savior'
And they pray to him upon the seas
And in every bold endeavor
And they fill his churches with their pride and gold
As their faith in him increases
But they've turned the nature that I worship in
From a temple to a robber's den
In the words of the rebel Jesus

Well we guard our world with locks and guns
And we guard our fine possessions
And once a year when Christmas comes
We give to our relations
And perhaps we give a little to the poor
If the generosity should seize us
But if any one of us should interfere
In the business of why there are poor
They get the same as the rebel Jesus

Now pardon me if I have seemed
To take the tone of judgement
For I've no wish to come between
This day and your enjoyment
In a life of hardship and of earthly toil
There's a need for anything that frees us
So I bid you pleasure
And I bid you cheer
From a heathen and a pagan
On the side of the rebel Jesus

                  Jackson Browne

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