Among the people and in the places that empire destroys and disregards. The trash, the excrement, and especially, as we are reminded by our siblings in Bethlehem and in all of Palestine this year: beneath the rubble. This is where God is born. Naming the divine in the abandoned and the bull-dozed. Affirming the human in the flesh of the tortured and the targeted, the dehumanized, and those whose lives have been cut short: by bullet, by hate, and by bomb.
Faithfulness to the Christ-child? This is no longer possible through folded hands and closed eyes alone. Prayer is lacking if it remains more of a wall and less of a doorway to solidarity with the oppressed, the persecuted, and the poor. And just to say it out loud: solidarity is not charity, of course. It is something more. Random acts of kindness don’t stop a war.
For this, in the words of Jesus’ Mother, tyrants will need to be dislodged from their thrones, and the lowly (those born in mangers or those born already-crucified) must become exalted and arisen. They must rise. Be resurrected. For this is love.
Until these (solidarity, resurrecting, dislodging, and so on) become our aim, as well, we cannot claim that we are fully “Christian” or that Jesus’ dreams are our own. Or that we stand in solidarity with the Crucified ones. And we can never sing with integrity, “silent night.”
For bombs are falling.
And, crying, the “little Little Lord Jesus” makes.
Each moment he wakes to a nightmare.
Christians, what will we do? May we stand with the Prince of Peace and cry with the Lord of Love,
“Ceasefire Now! End the Genocide. Free Palestine.”
Let’s tell this from the mountain. Shout it.
What kind of Christmas would it be if we didn’t?
What kind of Christians would we be, for that matter?
I don’t really know.
Merry Christmas.
Peace, Love & Liberation, All.
Ceasefire now.
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