It’s still Christmas in the Christian calendar and will be until the Feast of the Epiphany on Jan. 6. So here, just below, is Madeleine L’Engle’s poem “First Coming,” which I learned of during Advent through a retired Episcopal priest, David De Smith. It may be an inspiration for “truthers” of all stripes. The Jesus of Scripture was a truther as well as a great pragmatist. “He came when the need was great.”
Following the poem will be another view of Christmas, a chiding one, pointing out the paradoxes and hypocrisies of the season.
“First Coming” is from the 2007 book The Ordering of Love: The New and Collected Poems of Madeleine L’Engle
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He did not wait till the world was ready, / till men and nations were at peace. / He came when the Heavens were unsteady, / and prisoners cried out for release.
He did not wait for the perfect time. / He came when the need was deep and great. / He dined with sinners in all their grime, / turned water into wine.
He did not wait till hearts were pure. / In joy he came to a tarnished world of sin and doubt. / To a world like ours, of anguished shame / he came, and his Light would not go out.
He came to a world which did not mesh, / to heal its tangles, shield its scorn. / In the mystery of the Word made Flesh/ the Maker of the stars was born.
We cannot wait till the world is sane / to raise our songs with joyful voice, / for to share our grief, to touch our pain, / He came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!
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Courtesy of The Intercept, the meditation linked HERE is by Jon Schwarz, who sees the observation of Christmas in the United States as the negation of Jesus’ birth, “a berserk bacchanal celebrating an Opposite Jesus.” It’s headed “On Christmas, America Celebrates the Birth of Reverse Jesus: What if we were to actually use the life of Christ as a basis for Christmas?” Click on the link and see if it clicks with you.
Here’s hoping that either view, or both, might stir readers, just once more before Jan. 1, to contribute to an outfit dedicated to getting this country to the bottom of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and other matters the facts of which need to come to light.