No time for great thoughts, but that’s okay, because the Gospel provides us all we need know, and, as the Holy Father has said, the best response is silence.<\/p>\n
But I’ll only say (hah!) – as we contemplate the knots and paradoxes of Christian theology, and wonder about God and how it all can be, the feast of the Incarnation calls us to the proper stance. We spend a lot of time twisting and turning theological concepts to fit them into The Baby. But that is never the right way to view a baby – to decide who he is, to make pronouncements, to declare his identity before he can even open his eyes. We don’t do this with our own babies. We watch, and listen, and learn. <\/p>\n
So it should be with this Baby. Who is God? What does God think of the world? What does God think of you and your life? What does God hope for you? What does God think of your neighbor, your friend, your enemy? What is love? Why are you here?<\/p>\n
Be quiet, watch, and listen. You don’t have the answers. The Baby does.<\/p>\n
“A cold coming we had of it,<\/p>\n
Just the worst time of the year
\nFor a journey, and such a long journey:
\nThe ways deep and the weather sharp,
\nThe very dead of winter.”
\nAnd the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
\nLying down in the melting snow.
\nThere were times we regretted
\nThe summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
\nAnd the silken girls bringing sherbet.
\nThen the camel men cursing and grumbling
\nAnd running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
\nAnd the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
\nAnd the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
\nAnd the villages dirty and charging high prices:
\nA hard time we had of it.
\nAt the end we preferred to travel all night,
\nSleeping in snatches,
\nWith the voices singing in our ears, saying
\nhat this was folly.\n<\/p>\nThen at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
\nWet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation,
\nWith a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
\nAnd three trees on the low sky.
\nAnd an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
\nThen we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
\nSix hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
\nAnd feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
\nBut there was no information, so we continued
\nAnd arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
\nFinding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.
\nAll this was a long time ago, I remember,
\nAnd I would do it again, but set down
\nThis set down
\nThis: were we led all the way for
\nBirth or Death ? There was a Birth, certainly,
\nWe had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
\nBut had thought they were different; this Birth was
\nHard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
\nWe returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
\nBut no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
\nWith an alien people clutching their gods.
\nI should be glad of another death. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n