Annunciation
Hail, O favored one!
But Mary was greatly troubled
at the angel's erupting,
interrupting greeting.
No wonder.
The annunciation of
heaven
splitting earth
is always
troubling
trembling
tremendous.
Mountains shake,
hearts quiver
at the sound of
God's rousing.
No wonder.
Such announcements stir
dangerous memory:
the crumbling of ambition,
quakes rending high places,
saviors emerging from mangers
to subvert palaces and
princes and priests.
Hail, O favored one!
Heaven's comedy breaks
with a grin: into the womb
of a teenage peasant,
to shepherds standing
in dung-filled fields,
to goyim--
refuse of creation--
from distant lands
who decipher God's
signature in the very stars.
With Mary, Herod also shudders,
gripped with fear, at the sound
of this heavenly Hail!
His heart, too, is
troubled
trembling
tremulous.
But Herod-hearts
cast slaughtered innocents
in their wake.
Only those with
wombs of welcome
to heaven's Annunciation
can magnify God
and heal the earth.
Prayer
When we dare to pray "thy kingdom come" help us to
understand that this means we welcome you, magnify you, and seek, in what we do
and say, to heal your earth.
Note: FYI. Goyim
Goy (Hebrew: גוי, regular plural goyim גוים or גויים) is the standard Hebrew biblical term for a "nation," including the "great
nation" of Israel.[1] Use of
the plural, "nations," to refer to non-Jews is found from "I
will cast out the nations before thee" (Exodus 34:24) and long before Roman times it had also acquired the meaning of "gentile".[2] The latter is
also its meaning in Yiddish. The word is also used to pejoratively describe those not of Jewish descent. It is commonly used
to refer to Christians and Muslims, but is regularly used by Jews to refer to
any and all peoples of faiths other than Judaism. Wikipedia In Ken Sehested's context, of course, it refers not only to those we call the Magi but, pejoratively, to all beyond the chosen.
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