The 2nd Christmas: Infant Glossolalia

You took on flesh,

True flesh and grew

With the same astonishing 

Life-long quickness 

Of my one-year-old son.

You had a first birthday, 

Finding your feet,

The Word, imitating language

With sighs and groans,

The Word of Life, so deep within,

So clear and true,

In unadulterated expression

Of a conviction beyond

Language.

On the 28th of December my son, Gabriel, will have his first birthday. The year has been indescribable. Yet throughout all the challenges, just revelling in the privilege of being with our little boy as he grows has brought such sheer joy. At this time of year I'm obviously thinking about the incarnation. But rather than Jesus' birth, I'm thinking of him at the same stage of life as our little boy, as a one-year-old. Gabriel has been walking for a couple of months now, and often makes long convicted speeches in sounds that no one else understands, waving his hands like he's teaching some essential truth to a captive audience of thousands. This inspired the thoughts that inspired this poem. Thoughts of Jesus, the Word of God, the Λόγος, who would give the sermon on the mount, teach in such transformative parables, challenge and scandalise the pharisees, lift up with compassion the sick and outcast, as a one year old, speaking the same indecipherable sounds as he clumsily walks between his mother and father. 

Happy Christmas.