Incarnational

While waiting for the 24 North bus this morning, I realized my new favorite thing about winter: In wintertime, the invisible is made visible. Like always, I breathe in and out, but surprise! my breath materializes right in front of me. I can see myself living in a way impossible when the temperature is warmer. My misty breath rises up, like incense, like prayers, borne aloft as a testament of life and its steady rythym.

And of course, the invisible is made visible in the babe of Christmas, the incarnation of a God we could not previously see or touch. This Advent I have had often in my mind a lyric: "Marvel now, both heaven and earth, that the Lord chose such a birth." A birth of obscurity, to a young, poor couple in the back eddy of an empire. The familiarity of the Nativity scene can dull my senses to its immensity, and it is a grace to gain fresh wonder at that night in Bethlehem.

I gain fresh wonder from my confirmation class. "God became a baby?" they ask. "You mean, he cried and was little and couldn't talk??" The Incarnation shatters our false icon of a God so removed from our lives as to be pointless, like a distant benefactor who foots our bills reluctantly.

I get fresh wonder from the expectant mothers I know. A few weeks ago, my coworker Yesenia told me she was pregnant, and I had the distinct sensation that a moment ago, I thought I was talking only with Yesenia, but truly there was another present in the room, silent but real, hidden within a woman.

And I get fresh wonder from our prayer room decoration: a large painting of Joseph and very-pregnant Mary, traveling on donkey to Bethlehem. A simple painting, their faces are blank. Could they not be any other young, poor, jubilant and terrified expectant couple? How often do I meet Joseph and Mary, and baby Jesus, hidden right in front of me?

The winter chill makes me recognize my breathing, which is always there but seldom noticed. And when I do, I am more reverent of its continual presence, of my exsistence. Perhaps if mysteries were always concrete, we would become dependant on signs, and our faith would atrophy. So we're given glimpses here and there, at the bus stop, at the manger, and thus are taught to hone our senses to see what lies beneath our daily lives. To see the Incarnation in every face. O come, O come, Emmanuel!