Richards poem form liturgy last night: Advent (for nelson mandela) It seems unlikely to me, this season of Advent, a story of an unwed Mother journeying far, for reasons unclear, to a filthy manger, to give birth to the Child covered in blood, in a pile of hay. And Joseph, a seemingly mute witness, watching the story unfold, sensing perhaps the grief that will one day enfold them. Then there was a Star and three Wise Men. From the East they came, to the Mother and Child. Kneeling, they brought gifts that he already knew then he would need later. Reconciliation not being an easy affair. When Mandela was born, there was no Star, but the Wise came to him eventually, if reluctantly, and only much later. And Gifts? I imagine freeing the oppressed counts. He was not nailed to a Cross, but he carried one for twenty-seven years in a small cell and alone. A man who forgave the enemies that tortured him, imprisoned him, spat on him. A man who reconciled an entire nation exacting no retribution. And in this season of Advent, Mandela has gone, called perhaps by the Child. How long the people of South Africa waited to follow their Star out of the wilderness. How they must now grieve. Listening to the news, how foolish I feel this season of shopping, as I straighten the star on the top of my plastic tree, take the dusty, sanitized manger yet again from its old cardboard box, and wrap gifts that are not wise at all for people who know not what they do. - r. russeth
Posted on: Mon, 09 Dec 2013 18:45:49 +0000