Sometimes angels chew tobacco.
They arrive after storms
in stained coveralls,
dirt under ragged fingernails
dangling from knuckled prison tattoos.
They wouldn't be caught dead
in some glittery Christmas card froth.
Instead, armed with cranes and shovels
and Bobcats, they do
the grunt work of repair
to celestial songs of chainsaws
clearing roads, scooping up debris,
and scrambling up poles to
string new light for the world.
Sawdust in hair, God-knows-what in beard,
their haloes of incense are workers' sweat
that hasn't seen a bath
since they left home a week ago
because they're camping out in a tent
like God-with-us down in the mud
by the receding raging river.
There are no annunciations, no gold anything.
They just clear someone's driveway
and move on without a word,
anonymous, as if never there,
except they've made a way
outta no way for life to continue
out of the midst of death's darkness.
We entertain them with shared storied food,
aware of their divinity
even as they remain angels unaware,
seeing themselves only as stinky
fellow poor wayfaring strangers
called to care however they can
with whatever gifts they have.
In them, though, through grateful tears,
we see the shekinah robe of God
trailing through the brokenness
of this world, leaving blessings
in their wake of new possibilities
born out of the clearing of tangled grief
bleached sparkly clean with heaven scent.
_________________________________________________________
Tess Lockhart is a Christian theologian and poet who seeks to bear witness to Spirit moving through a broken world "charged with the grandeur of God." https://tess-lockhart.com/
They arrive after storms
in stained coveralls,
dirt under ragged fingernails
dangling from knuckled prison tattoos.
They wouldn't be caught dead
in some glittery Christmas card froth.
Instead, armed with cranes and shovels
and Bobcats, they do
the grunt work of repair
to celestial songs of chainsaws
clearing roads, scooping up debris,
and scrambling up poles to
string new light for the world.
Sawdust in hair, God-knows-what in beard,
their haloes of incense are workers' sweat
that hasn't seen a bath
since they left home a week ago
because they're camping out in a tent
like God-with-us down in the mud
by the receding raging river.
There are no annunciations, no gold anything.
They just clear someone's driveway
and move on without a word,
anonymous, as if never there,
except they've made a way
outta no way for life to continue
out of the midst of death's darkness.
We entertain them with shared storied food,
aware of their divinity
even as they remain angels unaware,
seeing themselves only as stinky
fellow poor wayfaring strangers
called to care however they can
with whatever gifts they have.
In them, though, through grateful tears,
we see the shekinah robe of God
trailing through the brokenness
of this world, leaving blessings
in their wake of new possibilities
born out of the clearing of tangled grief
bleached sparkly clean with heaven scent.
_________________________________________________________
Tess Lockhart is a Christian theologian and poet who seeks to bear witness to Spirit moving through a broken world "charged with the grandeur of God." https://tess-lockhart.com/
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