I should be glad of another death.

Signs are taken for wonders. “We would see a sign!”
The word within a word, unable to speak a word,
Swaddled with darkness. In the juvescence of the year
Came Christ the tiger
In depraved May, dogwood and chestnut, flowering judas,
To be eaten, to be divided, to be drunk
Among whispers; by Mr. Silvero
With caressing hands, at Limoges
Who walked all night in the next room;

By Hakagawa, bowing among the Titians;
By Madame de Tornquist, in the dark room
Shifting the candles; Fräulein von Kulp
Who turned in the hall, one hand on the door.


- From Geronition, by T. S. Eliot


A few weeks ago, I accompanied my mother and sister-in-law to the Womens Bible Study at our Church. Though I had not done the homework, my mother has the entire Bible recorded on her iPhone, and I listened to the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke on our 45-minute drive to church.

I have read them many times before. I have heard sermons preached on the tired passages, and a hundred movies and Christmas plays. I used to play with the plastic nativity set my parents bought specifically to be used by the children. Growing up with an advent birthday, these stories were nothing new.

Traditionally we celebrate the birth of Christ in December. I have heard arguments for a Christmas in July. For whatever reason, the women's bible study decided to discuss it here, in the fall. In the hot, North Carolina September, when all my friends are off at their respective universities, I am to turn my mind eastward to the most dysfunctional family. To two fathers with a mother who never knew either, and the smelly audience of strangers.

"Do you think the baby, nursing at His mothers breast knew that He was God?" We were asked. It's a part of the story I am unaccustomed to considering. But in a room full of mothers, the question was pertinent.

"Did Jesus, as a baby, continue crying when His mother shushed Him?" My own mother, to whom disobedience is undoubtable a sin, needed to know. Despite experiencing my nephews Christmas birth two years ago, such questions had never carried particular importance to me.

If that kind of disobedience is (as my mother so adamantly holds) a sin, should we not, as parents, think very carefuly about the commands we give to our young ones? Is not giving constant orders to children who barely have self-awareness, who could barely know if they were the God of the universe, spurring them into sin?

I suppose as someone who requires so much forgiveness myself, I've been over concerned about condemning others. I've long regarded Saint Peter's keys to the kingdom ("I will give you mthe keys of the kingdom of heaven, and nwhatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.") as an exciting opportunity to leave a great deal unbound on earth, and, therefore, in Heaven.

To me though, I have always viewed Jesus, as man and child, as Love incarnate. Something important happened when Christ was baptized, to be sure, (He was given the Holy Spirit, whatever that means) but I must believe that the Father spoke to Him before this.

Many women brought up the Anne Rice novel that I have not read, in which the Boychild slowly realized His divinity. But I cannot see it that way. To me it is always God. God Himself, lowly and vulnerable. In need to warm blankets, and a mothers milk, and the muscle memory to form words, and friendship. But of course, as my pastors wife reminded us, in this discussion, we are always on the fringe of heresy.

In the end, though, the conversation dropped back to the horror of the entire situation. Most women in the room knew the terror of labor, but it was more than that. Following His birth, they fled to Egypt. Saint Mary seemingly did not tell Saint Luke much about that trip, only that it happened. What went on in those years in a foreign land? And Saint Joseph labored for the rest of his life for a wife who, according to Catholic theology, he was to take care of without ever taking. Sure, there were angels to instruct them, from time to time, but in the end, if that child had not been Love, could they have sacrificed themselves so completely for Him?

The tune of the conversation turned my mind towards T. S. Eliot's Journey of the Magi . Which you can hear him read here.


And here were my reflections, shamelessly stole from Mr. Eliot, as usual.


Sunday Sonnet XXV

A hard and bitter coming they all had of it:
The evidence of birth, and yet the death.
The baby made adults seem counterfeit
As deity and mortal shared each breath.
And Joseph’s wife, whom he could never touch
Could not refrain from calling herself blessed
Through Egypt’s desert days, and swords, and such
As even thinking, mothers are distressed.
The word within a word Who could not speak
Let angels help the man who was not Dad.
Let angels speak the bitter for the meek
And mild Who took the peace they never had.

And yet we read their tales with jealous eyes
Though blessing breeds her trails in disguise.