I'm trying to trace how I got from a story about a star over a stable to this aisle of books with grinning preachers and sanctimonious stares. Dust covers of cyclical reasoning and feel-good theology. Happy doses of anecdotal wisdom placate the unease of our contradiction and hypocrisy.
It's so tidy. So neat and glossy. Straight white teeth. It's all going to be okay.
Even the attempts to be real and raw are holstered because they always have a convenient conclusion- wrapped in ribbon like the presents we exchange. Axioms so vague and manipulative, you can't approach with reason or logic because they are built on the ethereal. You can't punch a cloud.
The brutal world that cuts us with the unknown is salved with privileged punchlines. Like prayers and perseverance are all that is needed to drag this body to heaven. Strung along. Strung out.
The chipped rusty edge of life runs along skin and the wound opens- despite all the prayers, all the books, all the stage lights and systematic theology. Life pours out onto the pavement like there wasn't much holding it in.
This is the mess. This is the blood that's missing in the aisle. It's not in the wine by the bread. It's not in the pulse of the preacher. It's not in the hands of the writer.
The blood is in the dirt at the foot of some wooden beam. It's on the floor in a stable. It's on the concrete, surrounded by fluttering police tape, waiting to be washed away by the rain. It's on the ground, below a swaying rope. It's in the waters, below a hull.
So if this star illuminates anything, let it shine and gleam off a body drenched in the stuff. A solitary stable. Arched back, a gasping mother. Let it show, let it prove, that nobody ever comes into this world clean.
A child screams and strains. And if anything is silent about this holy night, let it be the world, the world all scarred from not knowing. And if there is peace, let it be the world, the world now seeing it was never alone in its bleeding out.