Wherever they are, they have traveled far. Not at home, known and comfortable. Not on the road, exhausted from the journey. Arrived but unsettled. No room in the expected places, no welcome in the usual way. Whatever they expect, they can only imagine. Preparation leads to prayer's edge: picturing what might be, trusting what could come, unknowing until inhabited. They have seen the shift to parenthood from outside, but never for themselves. They cannot know until they arrive. However she feels, today is the last day like this. Feeling his kicks and squirms, marveling at the stretch of her skin, carrying the heaviest weight her body will hold. Tomorrow will bring transformation for both of them. Whatever she knows, control is not hers. Mysterious forces guide birth, and his will be the most sacred. Turns out the baby's lungs trigger labor, the pneuma within us, the Spirit wanting to breathe. However tomorrow looks, it will turn upside down. Scripture does not mention a … [Read more...] about the day before Christmas
Joseph
the day after the first christmas
Here she is, only a day into motherhood. Her hands trying to figure out how to feed her crying newborn, human as he is. Maybe she has help from midwives who took pity on a poor girl far from home, no kinswoman of her own to care for her. Or maybe she feels so alone that her heart aches for her mother or cousin, sisters or friends, anyone who could guide her learning to nurse this baby, bring soft clothes to diaper him, serve her warm food for strength, help tend her healing body. Here he is, only a day into fatherhood. His head still reeling from the panicked fear of not finding her a place in time, his face flushed from the shame of not being able to provide. He never dreamed any of this: witnessing labor only women do, caring for a wife he had never touched, staring while strangers showed up to a filthy stable to say they saw some sign of hope. And having to hold her in that darkest hour, the moment when the world split open between life and death and everything hung in the barren … [Read more...] about the day after the first christmas
