January 6: Epiphany

Gift of the Kings

And today the Magi come
bearing the world's pain as gifts.
Myrrh - anointing at death.
Bosnia - Herzegovina greed for land
leads to death's anointing of man with gun
of woman and child displaced and starved;
the old of unendurable cold.
In Somalia famine's skeletons
dehydrate in the sun - lives lost
for other's power - life is cheap
if it is not mine - there is no time
to anoint with myrrh here.
Bomb blast and gunfire in Northern Ireland
Obsession with possession of the upper hand
has lost sight of the saving grace
that came in vulnerable human babyhood
¬a worse obscenity to claim
the doing of it in Your Name.
Here myrrh is made with tears of mourning
of those who know the pain of vulnerability.
This is a gift of sadness laid before You
Vulnerable God.
May we enter into Your saving Love and be redeemed.

Frankincense, sweet scent
arising from the goodness of the
little ones; the downtrodden,
who willingly share, bite their tongues, and in hiddenness
minister to You in the other.
The fragrance of goodness rises
dispelling evil's miasma and
gratuitously offered is a pleasing gift.

Gold, over which there is so much greed
giving rise to power and might is not
the gift laid before You - rather
it's the struggle to use all things
reverently and freely for the good of one
and the good of all. Not owned by many
and so the value of this gift lies in it's
rarity - found in pockets all-over the Continents.