Friday, December 25, 2009

Thoughts on the Incarnation, pt. 1

My friend Edith M wrote a beautiful (and brief, for which I'm jealous) blog post on a freshly relevant view of God's incarnation as we Christians understand it. This idea that God-becomes-us, or God-with-us ("Immanuel") has many, many implications for a human race that feels, in largesse, that it is abandoned by some distant, bearded deity. And yet so few of them are imagined in masses throughout the country, unfortunately. Maybe because we have not learned to lose, as my friend has. But I'd venture it would best work out the opposite direction - that when we can imagine that God has already walked as we walk, that he has already been through the muck, the mire, the deep shit that we wade through (real and imagined), when he knows hunger pangs, when he has seen skin falling off dead nerves, when he's struggled looking for work along with other working class and servants, when he's being suffocated by zombie-like masses and power-hungry sociopaths, when he's felt urgent anger, and deep loss, when he fears for his immediate future - this is when we can better face tomorrow. This is when we can be connected to something bigger than ourselves.

I'd like to say that I'll write down further thoughts by the end of Christmas day (they are in my head, but I'm not the fastest typist nor the best at organizing thoughts... alas), but I don't want to lie.

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