mumble mumble mystery

We’ll make the writers scribble paradox instead;
we’ll put a stop to the word incarnation.

We’ll pull the word out of the mouth, a series
of silk scarf syllables, pull the magic
out till we each have to feel our own teeth
and mumble the word mystery.

Mumble, hark the heralds, mumble,
in excelsis, mumble, shepherds pie
and indigestion, running to the run
down room to find *that thing* wrapped
in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger:
mumble mumble mystery,
mumble mumble bow the knee.
What is it? Manna?

No word comes to mind,
to heart, to pen, to tongue,
to have or to hold.

We the magi have come for a star
and have found a toddler. The command
-ment stands so we kneel and open boxes
of our best doctrines, our very best words,
that you, small king, may be crowned with
incarnation.

"A Cradle Song" // A Poem for Christmastime

by William Blake

Sweet dreams for a shade,
O'er my lovely infants head.
Sweet dreams of pleasant streams,
By happy silent moony beams

Sweet sleep with soft down,
Weave thy brows an infant crown. 
Sweet sleep Angel mild,
Hover o'er my happy child.

Sweet smiles in the night,
Hover over my delight. 
Sweet smiles Mothers smiles
All the livelong night beguiles.

Sweet moans, dovelike sighs,
Chase not slumber from thy eyes,
Sweet moans, sweeter smiles,
All the dovelike moans beguiles.

Sleep sleep happy child.
All creation slept and smiled.
Sleep sleep, happy sleep,
While o'er thee thy mother weep

Sweet baby in thy face,
Holy image I can trace.
Sweet babe once like these, 
Thy maker lay and wept for me

Wept

Wept for me for thee for all,
When he was an infant small.
Thou his image ever see.
Heavenly face that smiles on thee. 

Smiles on thee on me on all,
Who became an infant small,
Infant smiles are his own smiles,
Heaven & earth to peace beguiles.

In this season it is good to slow and stop and hear the words "miracle" and "incarnation" and (sure, go for it) "hypostatic union." It is good at Christmas to mull over the mystery of God in human flesh and why not use all the big words we've got?

But then it is also good to hear the eighteenth-century Blake speak in the simplest words of the most magnificent mystery: God the "maker" has become a crying babe, and "Infant smiles are his own smiles"!

image by Daniel Thomas

When I see the cradle rocking...

Advent

by Donald Hall

When I see the cradle rocking
What is it that I see?
I see a rood on the hilltop
        Of Calvary.

When I hear the cattle lowing
What is it that they say?
They say that shadows feasted
       At Tenebrae.

When I know that the grave is empty,
Absence eviscerates me,
And I dwell in a cavernous, constant
        Horror vacui.


(Source: Poetry magazine, January 2010)

Advent Hope Is Not

tinsel, market projections, gift cards -- no.

Advent hope is not that a pretty baby will appear in the manger and sales will rise and the economy will resurrect. Advent hope is that empires will fall: all empires, with their idolatry, their gluttony, their pollution, their wars, their intrigue, their murder, and their weapons. . . . Advent hope is that our own empire will fall, and our own idolatry cease.
— Shelley Douglass

Advent hope is that our own empire will fall,

and our own idolatry cease.

 

"Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion!
Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem!
See, your King comes to you,
righteous and having salvation,
gentle and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

I will take away the chariots from Ephraim,
and the war-horses of Jerusalem,
and the battle bow will be broken.

He will proclaim peace to the nations.
His rule will extend from sea to sea
and from the River to the ends of the earth."
[zechariah9.9-10]