Spiritual Sunday
Anyone with children knows the chaos they bring into one’s life. Even when they arrive longed for and expected, the parents have no idea what they are in for.
This surprise factor is at the basis of a lovely Advent poem–published in the Southern Poetry Review–by my friend Jennifer Michael, currently chair of Sewanee’s English Department. Herself the mother of a young child, she uses the experience to capture the holy disruption represented by the Christ child.
John the Baptist prophesied that the one who came after him would baptize with fire and the holy spirit, which about sums up how children impact our lives. “From life’s very source, he comes to shatter expectation,” Jennifer writes, “seizing the heart’s cords with small, potent hands.” Once one has a child, reality itself changes.
I also love the idea of “profound dependence.” We can’t think only of ourselves when we have children. They tear apart our calendars, which is to say life’s familiar parameters.
Michael ends her poem with the word “catastrophe,” which traces back to the Greek “katastrophe,” meaning overturning or sudden turn. We may use the Advent season to make ready for Jesus, purchasing the crib and decorating the room, but for how love overturns our lives “there is no preparation.”
Advent
By Jennifer Davis Michael
“O Come, Emmanuel,” we sing,
and call him “long-expected.”
Yet clearly his earthly parents
were taken by surprise.
No reservations at the inn,
no childbirth classes;
they swaddled him in makeshift rags
among the cows and asses.
The unexpected child
prepares his own room;
does not wait to be invited
or even knock politely;
tears apart the calendar,
inscribing every page
with the importunate demands
of newborn rage.
In his profound dependence
he conquers all,
seizing the heart’s cords
in small, potent hands.
From life’s very source,
he comes to shatter expectation,
and for that catastrophe
there is no preparation.
