Mass of the Incarnation

266 CHRISTIANITY AND LITERATURE Mass of the Incarnation i. Kyrie Through that first week, God learned large distinctions: a pony flicking its tail, proud of black stripes curving like ribs to its white belly, wasn't a pony at all but a zebra. If a creature, though hovering like a dragonfly, revealed a bulbous torso, it was called hummingbird, so God scattered trumpetvine flowers among ferns, settled back, watched more come. Ten or eleven days into this life, God began to notice finer details, surprised at all he'd missed. He watched one giraffe's ear twitch, still itself, twitch. He watched the lion's stiff whiskers quiver; he listened to the lion's belly, its eager rumble. He saw clusters of cicadas scurrying branch to branch; he heard their peculiar clamorous harmony, all desire distilled into noise. Sunk in such abundance, God felt awe, and love of course for the blue whale blotched with barnacles, its absurd diet, twin blow holes bursting mist, for sleek porpoises, grinning dolphins, for the great white shark's fiercely serrated teeth, but more, God felt something new, full, something he could name, yes, this seeping compassion, it was mercy. CHRISTIANITY AND LITERATURE ii. Gloria Recall your lover's face, her dark soothing gaze, her eye'souter edge drawn up with pleasure, one lash drifting to her cheek, pausing. Youpause as you would slightly for breath at the comma that paces her careful script. You'vealways thought God's breath whirled, billowing life fiercely into you, but maybe God exhales gingerly, just the soft puffyou need to lift her lash away. Once, as she slept against your shoulder, you grew faint, matching your breath to hers. Imagine oxygen, its countless atoms rushing into her lungs, slipping through capillaries, brightening her blood, red cells curled like phlox clusters, white cells fuzzy as pollen, blood rising to warm her skin, the heat of it searing your fingertips now as she sleeps and breathes and sleeps. She'sdreaming her dream, lost children, the house with many rooms. So much transpires within a body, flesh transfigured into life, this woman who Sighs,turns, utters mystical syllables as she wakes. 267 268 CHRISTIANITY AND LITERATURE iii. Credo The parts of ourselves seen and unseen we couldn't have imagined into being by ourselves. Sometimes breath equals wind and sometimes wind equals spirit. When Jesus insulted, then blessed the Syrophoenician woman, he exhaled carbon dioxide, water vapor, his moist breath wafting north, west, descending to the sea, evaporating again, again. Just now, I've inhaled a bit of ancient oxygen. Not every breath a long sigh through centuries, not every breath brimming with molecules from the literal body; every breath the breath of God. The words that dwell among us. His words, how easily recalled: Blessed are the poor, the meek, the hungry. How impossible to forget: He said he would not waste children's food on dogs, but she said dogs will wait for crumbs, and he blessed her. When I exhale, who shall receive my breath, and who shall cradle my unbelief? Forgiveness: rough word, yet she held to her belief, forgiving him in the wideness of her mercy. CHRISTIANITY AND LITERATURE iv.Sanctus I woo God with oranges, a startling ascent of scented mist. Come, I say Saturday mornings, I've grated zest into our pancakes; I've squeezed juice into your favorite spun glass tumbler. I know your longing, I say, to peel open this honeybell heavy with juice, to tuck one weighty section between your cheek and tongue. Oh taste and see the goodness of the world; recall your first experience of delicious, your desire to say more. I know your hope to stroll through new groves even as night opens to its chill, to curve your hands above lighted smudge pots until dawn sifts across the eastern sky. Unseen by anyone, you would pluck a branch full with blossoms, angle it casually between butter dish and syrup pitcher just as we entered thinking of breakfast. 269 270 CHRISTIANITY AND LITERATURE v. Agnus Dei I wish I did not so enjoy broiled lamb, fiercely rare, my plate dribbled red, potatoes tinged with blood. At Easter...