But Born Again Is Born without a Skin

"The cattle are lowing
The poor Baby wakes
But little Lord Jesus
No crying He makes"

Away in a Manger 

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Dear Alex,

In the expanse of a wintry windy week, this is my 4th trial in writing responsively to the segment of the lyrics for "Away in a Manger". I have chosen this quote and I feel the need to stick with my choice in spite of this freedom granted to me to choose again.

If all over I could choose in the obscenity of my imagination, I would opt for the bubble-tea over loitering and lingering away in a manger.

But I would not choose for this passing week to recur. My face erupted in a butterfly rash days ago, something of nature's lowing for me twice or more a year, holiday-red arabesque adorning my cheeks and jaw for the next few weeks in rippling.

I have become less recognizable but more recognized in new ways. My daughter cannot look at me without laughing in fear, her face turned away to preserve her memory of my normalcy. She knows I prefer face-to-face dialogues but her choice is settled for now without my choosing. At work I wear a mask to minimize attention in vain. I am choosing vanity over itch.

In the succulence of a day, most of our choices are hidden from self-awareness. We copy-paste daily rituals and lip-sing Christmas carols without choosing to question or doubt our decisions. The itch in us is to answer to the lowing of Black Friday sales with our butterfly strokes on smart phones and PayPal.

I am inflamed with greed and conceit. I need bubble-tea to quell my thirst.

For the single mother of 3, her banking balance in red must be too raw for me to recognize. She is a butterfly in vain. If she could choose still, she may opt for bubble-tea too.

Christmas advent has just launched. Before the lingering days of this year fizzle away, we will be quarantined away in a manger of choices: feasts, parties, presents in bubbling babbling towers and tongues. The manger, bubble-tea or erythema, I would choose still, choose not, choose all over. And in this hypersensitive season of celebrating homelessness with the King, to choose again is to be free in the liberty of home, the manger gifted to us for every-day Christmas.

Yours, Kate

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Dear Kate,

This, from the Book of Job:

God is not a mortal like me,
    so I cannot argue with him or take him to trial.
If only there were a mediator between us,
    someone who could bring us together.
The mediator could make God stop beating me,
    and I would no longer live in terror of his punishment.
Then I could speak to him without fear,
    but I cannot do that in my own strength.

I don't know how to start to write about this.  There is a series of fabulous lectures from Yale that could serve as a great introduction, but an introduction is all it is, to clear the arena of simple answers and easy theology, detached analysis and disengaged speculation.

Not until we jumped into the ring we've read the book in vain.

Lived our life in vain.

Scorsese responded to Job in black and white, with what I consider still his best movie and one of the greatest ever in film history:



And Cohen joined too the conversation between Job and his friends, with lines bone-chillingly Biblical:



I've seen you change the water into wine
I've seen you change it back to water too
I sit at your table every night
I try but I just don't get high with you

I wish there was a treaty we could sign
I do not care who takes this bloody hill
I'm angry and I'm tired all the time
I wish there was a treaty
I wish there was a treaty
Between your love and mine

They're dancing in the street, it's Jubilee
We sold ourselves for love but now we're free
I'm sorry for the ghost I made you be
Only one of us was real and that was me

I haven't said a word since you've been gone
That any liar couldn't say as well
I just can't believe the static coming on
You were my ground, my safe and sound
You were my aerial

The fields are crying out, it's Jubilee
We sold ourselves for love but now we're free
I'm so sorry for the ghost I made you be
Only one of us was real and that was me

I heard the snake was baffled by his sin
He shed his scales to find the snake within
But born again is born without a skin
The poison enters into everything

And I wish there was a treaty we could sign
I do not care who takes this bloody hill
I'm angry and I'm tired all the time
I wish there was a treaty
I wish there was a treaty
Between your love and mine

And who would have thought, the mediator, the judge, the peace treaty offered us is a helpless baby in a manger?

Yours, Alex