Nous attendions cet heureux temps

it's soggy, ready for a christmas rain. the vines of henry's dead zinnias, snapped in twos, threes at the first winter frost are now visible, the snow gone, the mud black beneath them as they wither in a quiet tangle. the street is a mirror, hazed as though the metal is chipping from the back. the drive is slush, gray, black, white in places. a gloomy eve of christmas, certainly. all of this winter weather and now we're in a melancholy; no sun, no snow sparkle.

fitting weather, perhaps, to contemplate the birth of the Saviour, the Christ, the Son of God who came to deliver us from darkness, to save us from our own gloom, doom, ourselves.



(lorenzo scott "ordained holy family")

what was the sky, the air, like for mary, for joseph as the first pulses of birth began, as they worked together to welcome Life to the world? was the world heavy and damp, waiting for something, for Breath and Light? did the star pierce through a haze and a darkness as the shepherds gently watched over their sheep, waiting for the Dawn, for the long arms of the sun to reach out and over the sleeping, dying world?

what did mary see in those eyes as they looked at her in the night, the morning, the afternoon? as she smelled his newborn head, counted the pudge of toes, wrapped him tightly and kissed him hundreds, thousands of times, did she understand, as i cannot, the magnitude of the wondrous gift she held in her feeble human arms?

what wondrous love is this? that the God of the universe who needs nothing of me, the wretched useless being that i am, reaches out and loves with depths of love that cannot be measured? that the beautiful Christ would descend to this darkness, and, seeking and saving, would beautify us for Himself?

***

I wonder, as i wander out under the sky
How jesus the saviour had come for to die
For poor orn'ry creatures like you and like i
I wonder as i wander out under the sky

When mary birthed jesus, 'twas in a cow's stall
With wisemen and shepherds and farmers and all
And high in the heavens a star's light did fall
'twas the promise of the ages, it then did recall

If jesus had wanted for any wee thing
Like a star in the sky, or a bird on the wing
Or all of god's angels in heav'n for to sing
Well, he surely could have had them, for he was their king

I wonder as i wander out under the sky
How jesus the saviour had come for to die
For poor orn'ry creatures like you and like i
I wonder as i wander, out under the sky.