From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst
25 December
I find the following image profoundly comforting: a baby
lying on his back in a manger, vulnerable as an upturned turtle - yet tranquil
for all that. This baby, born in a stable, will end up dying on a cross - and,
if Scripture is to be believed, between birth and death he was nothing but an
itinerant hand-to-mouth preacher who had not whereon to lay his head.
Translation: Poverty of the most profound sort was integral
to everything about the person this child became.
He wasn’t stuck with this poverty but instead it seems He
actively and willingly embraced it as a kind of liberation from a materialism
you and I find ever seductive.
The impact He had on this world was somehow directly related
to the immense power inherent in that embracing of poverty.
This poverty bridges the gap between Him and all of us
enmeshed, as we are, in a plethora of poverties as distinctive to each of us as
is our retina scan. And finally, we too can become strong in our weakness[es]
as He Himself apparently was.
Yes, vulnerable as an upturned turtle - yet tranquil for all
that.
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