God is Born

Christmas at the jail is invariably a night of brutal dissonances. Kitschy decorations (Santas, elves, cardboard fireplaces, candy canes) labouring to add a bit of colour to drab concrete and plastic. Christmas carols competing for auditory space with the squawk and buzz of intercoms and the clanging of heavy doors. Ornate words about hope and joy in a place where despair and cynicism come more naturally. In the Christian life, there is always a gap between the hope we proclaim and the reality we experience. This is life in between Christ’s advents. At the jail, the gap just seems exponentially wider.

Last night, I was once again among the group that travelled around to sings songs and deliver treats to those who were not allowed to attend services and were confined to their units. Health care (those struggling with “suicidal ideation” or other mental health issues), disciplinary, protective custody, etc. You get a range of reactions, from wild enthusiasm and appreciation (guys banging on their doors for one more song, tear-stained expressions of “thanks for coming to see us”) to disinterest (one guy didn’t even get out of bed) and everything in between. I like going out to the units at Christmas, to the poorly behaved, the disturbed, the easily forgotten. It seems like the sort of thing Jesus would be in favour of.

Last night, we sang songs for one guy in segregation. He looked like a kid, in many ways, but I’m often wildly wrong about how old the inmates are (in both directions). Tattoos streaked across his face, his arm was in a cast, his smile was tentative as I approached the servery tray that was opened to allow him to listen. “Do you know any Christmas carols?” I asked him. “You’re welcome to sing along, if you want.” He grinned somewhat sheepishly. “Nah, I don’t know many songs. I’ll just listen.” And so we sang our songs. I watched him, face pressed up against the glass. He seemed to soften somehow, over the course of our time spent in front of his door. His smile grew a bit wider. At one point, I thought I saw him even trying to sing along.

As we were leaving, I went to leave his treat bag at the door (it doesn’t fit through the servery window— the guards would give it to him once we left). I leaned down and spoke through the opening, told him some of the things that were in the bag, wished him the best, said it was nice to meet him. He crouched down so I could see him. “I want to thank you guys so much, those songs were so nice, this was the best thing that’s happened to me in a long time.” I swallowed hard at that thought, that a few strangers singing a couple off-key songs could be the “best thing” that’s happened to someone in a while. I wished I could shake his hand or give him a hug. But we had been told no contact in this unit. And that big, ugly, door…

Out in the hallway, I asked the guard if he knew anything about this guy’s story (I had seen the guard talking to him as we left). “He’s had a rough few days,” he said. “Stillborn child, didn’t handle his emotions well, ended up down here.” I thought about the cast on his arm, wondered where he had broken it. A table? A concrete wall? Another inmate? I thought about how a bunch of songs about a child of promise, about an entire holiday devoted to celebrating a birth might sound to a young man who had just lost a child.

Speaking of brutal dissonances.

This morning, I read an article by Belle Tindal that talked about the shock of Christmas:

In shock at the cosmically sized implications of this event: that God refuses to be God without us. That the God of the universe, if he exists, would come to us. That he was here. That a plan with such epic proportions was enacted in such gritty circumstances. That he would wrap himself in the confines of time and place, that he would clothe himself in matter. That he would make himself see-able, touch-able, kill-able. That he would appear, right? And that he would do so, in order that our souls would feel their worth.

I love that line—“that God refuses to be God without us.” And that he would do so in order that souls—all souls, even staggering, sorrowful souls stuck in segregation at Christmas time—would feel their worth. It is indeed a shock. It should be, at any rate, much as we labour to reduce Christmas to a more manageable, saccharine affair. The God who flung the stars into the heavens taking up residence in the gritty confines of a specific time and place. The God in whom we live and move and have our being confined to the helpless constraints of human flesh and frailty. The Author of the story writing himself into its pages. The Lord of life making himself “kill-able…”

Speaking of brutal—and beautiful—dissonances.

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The image above is taken from the 2023-24 Christian Seasons Calendar. It is a creation of Jules Atkinson and is called “A light shines in the darkness.”