Once upon a time, a few millennia ago
they say a dreamer and a virgin
travelled by donkey to a far off land.
There the virgin had a baby
and the baby was God.
Imagine! The Infinite and Almighty
with tiny hands and feet
constrained by swaddling bands.
And because there was no room for such a God
they placed him in a manger full of straw
a feeding trough,
as though it were his destiny to be consumed.
The tiny face of God crinkled to cry with thirst
for milk, and something more
from a human breast.
(They say he cried this same cry, years later
from another bed of wood).
And to this scene strange searchers come:
wise men who followed a star
to find something brighter still,
and shepherds who also came guided by something in the sky
to find a new kind of lamb.
The sages and social misfits mingle
to adore a tiny helpless God.
How odd.
But stranger still, that time and eternity now linked
the eternal heart of God now forever beats with human blood.
And he is himself a searcher through the centuries
still looking for a room
and a human breast to hold him close.
Of course only a child could believe such things.
So let the worldly wise
settle for more realistic stories
of flying reindeer
and red round men sliding down chimneys.
Originally posted Christmas 2014. Photo credit The Adoration of the Shepherds, by Guido Reni [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Frassati Reflections 