"Does God Belong?" - December 24, 2017

A Christmas Eve poem:

Does God Belong?

Does God belong
in flesh? Does God belong
in places void of dignity?
Is God found where the world's gone wrong,
where hate is strong?
What god forsakes eternity 

and leaves behind
the glory he deserves --
becomes entwined by ugliness,
by sin, by death? A god preserves
himself. Why bind
his fullness to our emptiness?

A peasant girl 
and carpenter who come
together underneath a cloud
of scandal and suspicion 
that made heads whirl--
is that a good way to start out?

A town beneath 
a capital's safe walls -- 
exposed to death in time of war

and targeted by trumpet calls --
no place to leave
a weakling child born to be a savior.

A feeding trough --
a part of every farm, 
a part of every stable, barn, 
or inn -- can take so many forms:
some smooth, some rough,
none any place to put a newborn.

Let that mind be
in us which was in Christ:
who, though he shared in God's own essence,
did not let anything entice 
equality 
to equal pride; imported presence

where absence is,
so right where God was not
God would be active -- human loss
no obstacle as we had thought.
So now love lives
in both a manger and a cross.