…an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said,

“Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt,

and remain there until I tell you…”  -Matthew 2:13

Seeker,

Where would you go if you had to find a safe haven for your family?

Ever-evolving,

always shifting,

LIFE is miracle in motion.

No static system does justice

to the elegance of energy

that emanates from an emancipated spirit.

 

Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge.

There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard;

yet their voice goes out through all the earth,

and their words to the end of the world.  -Psalm 19:2-4

Blizzards of spiraling galaxies,

upheld in cosmic flow,

slow-dance to eternal music beyond what we can know.

Our swirling dust-mote planet,

caught in radiant eddy bright,

makes her endless circuit around our lonely light.

 

All on earth is mobile;

a river of relations,

cycles, tides, and seasons turning without destination.

Listen to God! See the Earth as a point compared with the vast circles it describes. Stand amazed that this circle itself is only a tiny point in relation to the course traced by the stars revolving in the firmament; that the whole visible world is no more than an imperceptible speck in the ample bosom of nature.  -Blaise Pascal

Consider mass migrations

that few of us will see,

of wildebeest and caribou, butterflies and bees.

On grassy plain and foaming fathom,

clouded sky and forest floor,

living things on epic journeys stream and teem and soar.

Have you glimpsed those fast formations

riding high on tides of air,

undulating skeins of cranes that flit from here to who knows where?

A blade of grass is commonplace on Earth; it would be a miracle on Mars… And if a blade of grass is priceless, what is the value of a human being?  -Carl Sagan

Our own dear sacred story

recalls a restless race,

shepherded by a holy ache to find its one true place.

After centuries of exploration, conquest and subjugation

empires forged, now lie fragmented,

into shards of shifting states.

Who would stem this human stream,

shut out the refugee in flight,

that hopes for hospitality, a shelter from the storms of night?

The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God. -Leviticus 19: 34

 

No barbed-wire boundary

line or law can make us alienate

those who come as Christ disguised to stand before our gate.

Now as the door of mercy cracks,

may you do your very best

to make a space at least for one, and pray for all the rest!

“I was a stranger and you welcomed me…” -Matthew 25:35

joe