In the beginning

+In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

In the beginning was the Song. 
Because almost the first sensation that develops is hearing, and so the first knowing that the Word had when the Word became flesh was the syncopated double beat, the Word’s heart and the Word’s mother’s, drum drum drumming in the flesh that was becoming.
And then there were the other songs, the honking of the donkey and another beat, this time of hooves. 
Then there were the shrieks of agony and ecstasy, and all the time this beating flesh, now beating like the beak of a bird against the shell, the heart who was the heart of things.
 And then after the birth, there were the raucous bawdy shepherd songs, because the songs that keep you warm when your balls are freezing off in a field somewhere are not songs you would sing to your granny, but they were the songs they knew and so they sang them as they ran to the village, voices gasping and ragged. 
And there was the strange metallic music overhead as they ran, the angel chorus beating out glory, glory, glory. 
And on went the Song, lifted up in the wailing laments of the bereaved mothers as the family left for Egypt, carried through the journeys and the healings and the teaching.
It was carried up onto a cross, and for a moment it faltered. It stuttered. It stopped. 
And in the darkness of a tomb, up struck the beat again. 
On it went. On it goes, and we have heard its glory on dancefloors and in lullabies. We have heard it, the song that sings of a life fully lived. We have heard it, heard its glory, the glory as of a father’s only song, heard its heartbeat.

***

In the beginning was the Plan. 
And the Plan was with God, and all things came into being through the Plan. 
And the Plan was not a plan B, and the plan was not a plan A. He was just, the Plan. 
For God said, let there be light, because God wanted there to be something that was not God.
And for a long time that is all that there was, light speeding away from itself, rejoicing in the simplicity of being. 
And the Plan played and waited, and after a time there was matter. 
And after a time there was life, and the Plan laughed for the fun of the thing. 
And after another time, there were creatures, and the creatures began to tell stories. 
They were telling the story of their grief and being far from the God who was not them. 
So lately, at almost the last moment in fact, the Plan came into the world, to bridge the gap between God and not God. 
Not many people noticed. 
Many had got used to their grief and wore it like a blanket. 
But in all those years of waiting and playing, the Plan had learned about created things. 
How they are so much themselves. 
How they can only begin somewhere, not everywhere. 
How they come to an end.
So the Plan began somewhere, and was himself, and some people began to notice that there was a bridge between what was God and what was not God. 
And the Plan came to an end, but the Plan had still not gone wrong. 
Because the end of the Plan was the end of the bridge that the Plan had been building.
And to all who received him, who believed in the Plan, he gave power to walk across the bridge and become children of God.

***
In the beginning was the Word. 
And the word was a quiet word, a gentle word, a caress. 
It was a tu, a du, a thou, a ‘hello you.’ 
The word was also the breath before the word was spoken, and the breath breathed out in speech, meaning-laden.
The word was an invitation, not a demand. 
The word was a suggestion, not a statement.
The word was a whisper in the darkness. For darkness cannot put out sound.
And the Word became flesh, and pitched a tent of skin and sinew in our camp.
And the word looked at us and said, ‘hello, you.’

Amen.