Advent, Day 5: The Refugee Reversed

(refugee: a person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster)

You came from the belly-warmth 

into the atmosphere of earth,

Your lungs filled with oxygen

and Your voice the shrill cry

of new infant-life.

You came from another world,

but instead of running from a land

of war

to a land

of peace,

You stepped out of the Trinity’s space

into the toxins of our flesh.

You stepped into every known and unknown paradox–

rich and poor, 

good and bad,

healthy and sick,

free and chained,

dead and alive,

created and destroyed.

You were some sort of refugee-reverse we’d never heard of,

one who grew up to fight for all the other refugees around

Him.

May we find Your Spirit in each other’s eyes

when this Advent season calls us

to places that are unknown to us.

May we find You in those spaces most foreign to us,

where paradoxes swirl in the air like cold winter smoke.

Amen.