A Christmas Eve Reading

This isn’t poetry, but I wrote this for my faith community’s Christmas Eve service and I thought I would share it here:

Christmas Eve. The familiar image comes to mind: a cozy stable, fresh straw, benevolent animals looking on, Mary and Joseph peaceful and put together, graciously welcoming the visiting shepherds. And there he is the cute little baby with a bit of a halo, wrapped up like the presents we have waiting for us under the Christmas tree. This is the highly sanitized picture so many of us see when we think of the Christmas story. What happens if we remove the centuries of photo-editing?

Imagine this instead: Mary is in labour, in fact she’s been in labour for hours already. Her body is tired and sore from the long trip to Bethlehem, every step slow and heavy and sitting on the donkey was not much better. Now, she’s exhausted, in pain and trying not to think about the fact that there is no midwife here to ease her journey through the birthing process, let alone to catch the baby. She is trying not to let the hostility of Joseph’s relatives and the dirtiness of the makeshift stable overwhelm her. She can sense Joseph’s fear, but can’t spare any energy to reassure him. As another contraction begins, she takes a deep breath and cries out with the pain.

Joseph is trying to hold back waves of anger, frustration and worry as he supports Mary in his arms. He’s trying to concentrate on her and helping in any way he can, but he feels utterly useless. He should be outside pacing, waiting for a child to be announced to him. There should be women here taking care of Mary, scolding him to get out. Is this really how God wanted his son to come into the world. In a stable that reeks of animals and half rotten feed, shunned and rejected by those who under other circumstances would have welcomed Joseph and Mary as family and would have rejoiced in her first son?

And then, Mary is gripping his arms so hard he can feel his fingers begin to tingle. “He’s coming!” She gasps and finally there is the long-awaited child. Tiny and covered in blood. We see Joseph clumsily tying the umbilical cord, cleaning Jesus with some of the ice cold water from the water trough as Jesus screams and screams. We see Joseph handing him to Mary who wraps him tightly in scraps of cloth. We see joy and wonder, but also the terrible helplessness, exhaustion and poverty of the moment. There is blood in the straw, its cold, Mary is disheveled and weak. Joseph looks like a deer caught in headlights. This is how God chose to enter the world.

Kathleen Norris writes, “ when God comes into our midst it is to upset the status quo.” The Christmas Eve story is a reminder of the slow, often painful process of new life. We wait for the healer for 400 years, we learn to accept the unorthodox and radical way in which the good news will emerge, we obey the mysterious signs that ask us to journey toward a child, and at last, at last . . . we give birth to love incarnate.

winter

the long silence is almost at an end
the soil, tilled and left fallow
has begun to grow words
for a new soul

when you sit on a garden bench
with the Friend
hands intertwined in the evening light
no words are necessary

a creed for the moment

I have set my mind free
given myself permission to turn away
allowed my heart the silence it craved

I have given up a voice I thought was truth
have learned to speak a different language
careful and quick to love paradox

the path is set before me
I walk with joy, with confidence
even though I walk alone

I come home

I come home to
the “I Capture the Castle” soundtrack
cry all the tears I didn’t cry this week
in the first song
the joy and gratitude
too much for my heart

I come home to
the bits and pieces of wisdom
still making their rounds
through my head
Dr. Seuss and Julian of Norwich
both reminding me that all shall be well

I come home to
the safety of a God
who doesn’t use many words
isn’t afraid of a little darkness
a God I don’t have to perform for
will never have to prove myself to

I come home
to quiet
to solitude
to beauty

hope

there is poetry
in the veins of leaves
there is music
in the swish of your cat’s tail
there is magic
in the smell of sweet roiboos tea

there is enough
there is wholeness
there is enough

Generate

Hey Everyone,

For the emergent minded among you, a new magazine is being launched called Generate . They are currently offering a great rate on a subscription to the first four issues. Generate is run entirely by volunteers, so this is a great way to support them in supporting the arts. You’ll find me in the inaugural issue coming out in October!

Enjoy!

Jess

suffering

*for my family

I hold the pain of the world
in these two hands
balance the groans of organs and bones
with the unspoken fears
of minds lost in thick cloud

I carry the sorrow of the healthy
between these shoulder blades
anger at the cruelty and confusion of the universe
the hollow grief of futility

I cradle the hope of beauty in chaos
in the chambers of my heart
and my blood carries a measure of peace
to heavy hands
tired shoulders

in the Mount Carmel Chapel

my whispered words shimmer
out across the chapel floor,
swirl around the candles
like so many dust motes
weaving toward the altar,
heavy and wooden,
a gravitational centre
for the orbiting light
filtered through blood-red glass.
eventually
it trickles through the choir stalls
and lands at my feet.

the Christmas Eve Service in the Basel Cathedral

the men’s choir sang old carols
to red sandstone walls
where the shadow of Erasmus
nodded in time
to flickering candles
the rhythm of liturgy
eight hundred people
gave birth to hope
as the bells called
“joy to the world”
into the centuries.