Nativity of the Lord
Christmas



In the beginning

In the beginning all was darkness and void*

tohu w' bohu (sounds like tohoo w'bohoo in Hebrew, or spooky gooky in Disneyland)

and the spirit fluttered over the waters

and god said Let there be light.




It's a watershed moment,

the middle of the longest darkest night when dawn is far far away.

Down Under we just have to transpose ourselves to that mid night

to be at one with people who sat in darkness

sat in darkness for thousands and thousands of years

ignorant of the vital clue, the fate-filled key:

on them a light has dawned

 in the stillness of their winter's night.


The key that is the light

For one hundred thousand years or two

they thought the key was to be Top Dog

Turns out the one who wins life's mystery prize is the underdog.

How show this illuminating truth but by involving in the race

on that track that leads through integrity to the cross roads of truth

where the abused, the falsely accused, and crims who own their evil deeds

in the full light of day

are given honour honestly.


In the uncertain darkness

Luna Park in Melbourne is just 100 years old this month. When I did my one and only ride of terror it was not yet 30. Do you remember the feeling on the roller coaster as it reaches for the crest

slowly

almost stopping short

inclined backwards to plunge into that abyss -

it seems to pause

an endless uncertain moment

suspended

undecided to go forward or stay perched or fall
- backwards.

The terror of it!

Such is the moment in this watershed winter-solstice night
when god intervened in our human way in our evolving.

`

Our benighted Church is poised, hesitating, like the Luna Park big dipper

uncertain

terrifying the screaming children who are frightened,

genuinely and properly frightened,

of the dark.

Will we go back to as it was for the security of the continuous past

in all its dark bedevilment that we paint in colours of gaudy piety?

Or will we breast the wave and plunge into a new dawn awakening

as the surfer risks
to often tumble topsy turvy on abrasive sand.


On them a light has dawned...

in the beginning seen only by a couple and some inconsequential shepherds

in a stable on the straw


This whole Christmas myth is so gentle that it could be real and not be noticed

by historians.

They all agree we need some dawning light

before we tear apart the fabric of our world in our tortured darkness.


He came all so stille where his mother lay
Like dew in Aprille that falleth on the spray...**

Does it hurt to believe? To hope? To follow the light to the high road with its promises

and its cross?


And...

to plunge forwards...


Tony Lawless


*  Gn 1:1 King James version: And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. 

** Mediaeval canticle to the Virgin: I sing of a maiden    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWo4s9SFhkU