God Sat Alone

Four Sundays of preparation for God’s coming.
Hundreds of people waiting in expectation ...
as they have for two thousand years.

The huge crèche with a village of waiting figurines centered
round the still empty cradle blinked and glittered invitation.

Then,
just as the fourth service was ending,
God arrived.

The One who belongs beyond time,
beyond light and darkness,
beyond space infinite and infinitesimal arrived

Swaddled in three shirts and extra long, walked on jeans
stained by rain sweat nights spent barred from love
by barbed crowned walls and gates
locked from fear of Love’s inadequacy.

For someone Whose only language is Love,
the language being sung and spoken with musical and practiced intonation
had whispers and foggy wisps of connection
but never quite enough to be confident of the translation.

No one moved to greet God.

In fact, things went on,
albeit a wee bit chagrined,
as if no one was there, kneeling at the front.

Eventually, God turned around and sat on the altar steps.

God came.
But ...
God sat alone.


Bryan