So here comes Gabriel again, and what he says is "Good tidings of great joy for all people." That's why the shepherds are first: they represent all the nameless, all the working stiffs, the great wheeling population of the whole world.

We never slam the door on flattery, we nudge it shut like a man rejecting his mistress: if she nudges back, we're delighted – and if she breaks it down, we rejoice.

God is coming! God is coming! All the element we swim in, this existence, echoes ahead the advent. God is coming! Can't you feel it?

Sorrow spoken lends a little courage to the speaker.

So here comes Gabriel again, and what he says is "Good tidings of great joy for all people." That's why the shepherds are first: they represent all the nameless, all the working stiffs, the great wheeling population of the whole world.

It is not insignificant that my first apprehension of the love of God was granted in an experience with my father. Nor is it generally uncommon that God is apprehended in experience. Nor, in fact, can the divine and human meeting happen any other way. God is not a God of the pulpit, though the pulpit proclaim him. He is a God in and of the histories of humankind. What is significant is that I should have to say so.

Mirrors that hide nothing hurt me. But this is the hurt of purging and precious renewal - and these are the mirrors of dangerous grace.