.

took drugs at first to quell the unusual feeling

      From there no one is sure how it became global

      other than the emperor and all inoculated like him

      did their royal best to spin the good news

      birthed that night, but the more they suppressed

      the more it lifted up, the more they schemed

      the more the glad spirit frustrated their ways

      so that anywhere the ease of God disrupts dis-ease,

      birth pangs of faith and love and mercy have their way

      and people sing and someone catches it

      The Meaning of God

      Christmas 2 ABC

      John 1:1–18

      And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)

      You wish it could be put into words and paragraphs

      recited and parsed and memorized and philosophized

      offset printed in a leather-bound book

      closed and shelved and dusted for good company

      But Logos, Sophia, meaning, divine reason

      come to us through the cosmic entanglement

      of body and God, with birth pangs and dying pains

      and all the light and love you can squeeze in between

      so that the meaning of God—

      if there ever could be such a thing for us to comprehend—

      lives in created flesh and blood and heart and mind

      suffers mercy without explanation or cause

      births hope without limits or permission

      delights in life for all its holy humanity

      Openings and Obfuscations

      Baptism of Our Lord A

      Matthew 3:13–17

      And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” (Matt 3:16–17)

      A break in the clouds split the God-barrier open

      the heavens sang and summoned him as benevolence

      but then, as always happens and must happen,

      the closing, the occlusion of the space between

      Whether Jesus’ baptism or your own plunging initiation,

      perhaps a mystical desert epiphany of dazzling diamond light,

      a Himalayan climb into oxygen-starved euphoric heights,

      or a canyon ramble descending to depth and profundity,

      whether pharmaceutical prescriptions for bliss and dreamland

      or wild fungus visions of you outside yourself in glory

      You will always re-enter your mundane moment—

      like Jesus walking on from the Jordan to middling towns—

      you trod again the profane path of normalcy: a breakfast egg,

      a morning kiss, money spent, ICU waiting room, neat whiskey,

      forest walks, a desk and its chair, all so thick with obfuscation

      yet the wonder of it all

      Unbearable Lightness of Myself

      Lectionary 2 A

      Isaiah 49:1–7

      And now the LORD says, who formed me in the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him, and that Israel might be gathered to him, for I am honored in the sight of the LORD, and my God has become my strength—he says, “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” (Isa 49:5–6)

      He walked into the church office with laptop and lunch bag,

      set the coffee mug and stale scone on the desk alongside his Bible,

      Scotch tape, and notes from phone calls never returned.

      He Tweeted and emailed until his fingers floated off the home keys,

      his hair beginning to lift with static electricity,

      his feet rising from the blue carpet, his whole body feeling

      as if it would soon press against the ceiling fan and hot lights,

      his whole life a series of sneaked Wonka Fizzy Lifting Drinks

      leaving him too light, lacking substance,

      eventually he would float off to the cirrostratus clouds and disappear

      beyond the exosphere and Neptune and unnamed constellations

      and the event horizon, he would evaporate from memory

      not even his dog would miss him.

      And then the phone rings and the girl with the unexpected pregnancy

      and the ninety-eight year old woman dying alone

      and the light bulbs need replacing

      before the hungry come to shop the pantry shelves

      and the assembling again in the sanctuary where life

      once more becomes humble, heavy enough with the holiness

      required for there to be visible glory, the thick abiding presence

      that holds us beloved on the sun-lit earth.

      Chef

      Lectionary 5 A

      Matthew 5:13–20

      You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot. (Matt 5:13)

      There is white onion chopping to be done and crying with it

      and juliennes of jicama to slice and a slip and a cut and

      the vinaigrette must be whisked and emulsified and tested,

      balancing of sweet and vinegar to please the palate,

      the steak is seared in the black iron pan and peppered

      the potatoes roasted in rosemary and garlic browned.

      Then the chef does his effortless enchanted toss with salt

      delights the tongue and the soul,

      taking us back when salt is what we swam in and breathed and sang

      so much us that we did not know or taste until we left it.

      So it is with God and each other and the love we walked away from.

      Now with generous offering we are salted and relished,

      offered a taste of love in a bland and hungry world

      needing a mere amuse-bouche of the holy we are swimming in.

      Outside Inside Out

      Lectionary 6 A

      Matthew