Maybe Christmas means a little bit more...

Far Away in a Manger (another new poem for the holidays)

Far Away in a Manger

Hail Mary, full of grace

Did childbirth hurt on that first Christmas

Or was labor immaculate too

Free of contact

Free of pain?

Blessed art thou among women

If that were truly the case

Pray for us in our hour of death

Because we seem to be racing toward it

O come, O come Emmanuel

To ransom faith from religion

To remind those who claim to follow

That love still covers multitudes of sins

Until the Son of God appears

Not that they’d recognize you today

Because you’re not white, or Protestant,

Or born in the United States

Rejoice! Rejoice! And mourn in lonely exile

Kyrie eleison! Christe eleison!

Oh, the little town of Bethlehem

Seems light-years and centuries away

From our land of the free

Our home of brave believers

Who disregard and disrespect the stranger

Who mock and ignore the poor

Who hide our nation’s sins under a bushel

And tear them from the pages of school textbooks

How far away is that manger now

As we trade no crib for a golden ballroom

And worship a painted calf

Parading in the skin of a bull

The only lowing of cattle

Is the bellowing

From the pulpits of government

The baby is crying

We should all be crying

Blessed is the fruit of thy womb

Of all wombs: red, yellow, black, white

Both foreign and domestic

Created in the image of God

Endowed with inalienable rights

The stars look down where they lay

To see what? —

Hail Mary, full of grace

Remember us in this, the hour of our death

We do not live in the blessings of the immaculate

We live in the world of touch and pain

Where beings from man to woman and back again

Must bump against

The bulk of the other

All day, every day, and I imagine all that bumping

Must be what causes us to hate each other

Enough to put people in cages, enough to bomb innocents

Be near me, I pray, our King of Peace. Amen. Amen.

© 2025 Sean Taylor

Keep Christ in Christmas? Here's How!

Incarnate (a new poem for the holidays)

Incarnate

They say the secret miracle of Christmas
Is Immanuel, God with us,
They say it is the Word becoming flesh
And dwelling among us.
I hear their words,
But I feel they miss the point:
We are already incarnate.
Here from the moment we stood upright,
The day we fashioned clubs,
The year we scribbled pictures onto cave walls.
God has always been with us
Because we were already here.

Some say the meaning of Christmas
Is the newborn king,
The Prince of Peace, the son given,
And yet again,
The words fail to reach
Our incarnate ears of flesh.
Lips praise peace, hands and wills abhor it,
A grand idea, but it’ll never work

In the real world of mucous and muscle.

A beautiful notion fluttering too high above the garbage
For us to attempt,
So we sing songs about it instead.

(c) 2025, Sean Taylor

Christmas Incarnation -- The Crux of the Whole Shebang

Here at the onset of Christmas, let's get one thing straight: Christmas is fun. Songs are fun. Carols are a blast. Presents are fun. Remembering family and friends and spending time together is fun. The story of the birth of little baby Jesus is fun.

But that's not what Christmas celebrates.

Wait... What?!

I had you with me until that last part, didn't I? Well, I stand by my statement. Christmas isn't about the baby Jesus and no crying he makes and all of his visitors (some of whom may or may not be biblical, but that's a post for another time).

"Okay, smarty-pants," I hear you saying. "If Christmas isn't about the birth of Christ, then what is it about?"

Challenge accepted.

Are you ready?

Christmas is about the incarnation of Christ into the world. It's about something way, way beyond mere humanity emptying itself ("it" because we only ascribe pronouns to something that cosmically powerful in order to help us keep it in a box we can open and shut and package and name) and putting what it could of itself in a tiny package of human flesh. Christmas is about incarnation, pure and simple.

And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14, KJV)

Christ (somehow one of a triune God whose physical nature I can't even begin to remotely comprehend) became human. The closest approximation I could make is that I might feel bad for cockroaches who are getting close to poison so I let my big, human body become so completely cockroach that I could help those vile creatures hope to avoid the poison. But even that pales in comparison to the bigness of the truth of what incarnation really is, and not just because Christ genuinely loves us and I couldn't care two figs about a bunch of gross cockroaches.

God loved us and loves us so much that he sent Christ as his son to become human and take on all our sins and then die in our place. If that sounds like mythology, it's because it is, but not just mere mythology. It's the best story that can be imagined. It's the greatest myth of all. It's Prometheus with redemption attached. But best of all, it's true. It's history. But that doesn't make it any less mythic.

(Having typed that, I do realize that to those outside my faith admitting something that sounds so ludicrous that can make me seem like a clueless idiot who would believe anything. After all, it's designed that way. The wisdom of God comes off as foolishness to men after all.)

Christmas Thoughts

Christmas Thoughts

Christmas Thoughts

Christmas Thoughts

Christmas Thoughts

Christmas Thoughts

Christmas Thoughts

Christmas Thoughts

Incarnation -- Not Just for Messiahs

Here at onset of Christmas, let's get one thing straight: Christmas is fun. Songs are fun. Carols are a blast. Presents are fun. Remembering family and friends and spending time together is fun. The story of the birth of little baby Jesus is fun.

But that's not what Christmas celebrates.

Wait... What?!

I had you with me until that last part, didn't I? Well, I stand by my statement. Christmas isn't about the baby Jesus and no crying he makes and all of his visitors (some of whom may or may not be biblical, but that's an essay for another time).

"Okay, smarty-pants," I hear you saying. "If Christmas isn't about the birth of Christ, then what is it about?"

Challenge accepted.

Are you ready?

Christmas is about the incarnation of Christ into the world. It's about something way, way beyond mere humanity emptying itself ("it" because we only ascribe pronouns to something that cosmically powerful in order to help us keep it in a box we can open and shut and package and name) and putting what it could of itself in a tiny package of human flesh. Christmas is about incarnation, pure and simple.

And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14, KJV)

Christ (somehow one of a triune God whose physical nature I can't even being to remotely comprehend) became human. The closest approximation I could make is that I might feel bad for cockroaches who are getting close to poison so I let my big, human body become so completely cockroach that I could help those vile creatures hope to avoid the poison. But even that pales in comparison to the bigness of the truth of what incarnation really is, and not just because Christ genuinely loves us and I couldn't care two figs about a bunch of gross cockroaches.

God loved us and loves us so much that he sent Christ as his son to become human and take on all our sins and then die in our place. If that sounds like mythology, it's because it is, but not just mere mythology. It's the best story that can be imagined. It's the greatest myth of all. It's Prometheus with redemption attached. But best of all, it's true. It's history. But that doesn't make it any less mythic.

(Having typed that, I do realize that to those outside my faith admitting something that sounds so ludicrous that can make me seem like a clueless idiot who would believe anything. After all, it's designed that way. The wisdom of God comes off as foolishness to men after all.)

The Scandal of Christmas

Sheep poop. What part of this
makes for a glamorous religion?

"If you thought up a god, would you have him take on the form of his own creation, go to them to save them, and have them reject him and kill him? And then would you raise him from the dead and have his resurrected being witnessed by over a hundred people, yet unconfirmed by science, so it would be disputed for the rest of human history. And then would you have his church begun by a rag tag team of followers with little credibility and no social clout? See what I mean? It's preposterous. It's unthinkable." -- John Fischer

Continue reading: http://catchjohnfischer.wordpress.com/2012/12/27/the-scandal-of-christmas/

Free Christmas Tunes!

Merry Christmas and happy holidays from the Taylorverse!

Here's the gift of free music from my days with the band Nothing Regal. Sure, they're available for free streaming anytime, but for the next few days, I'm making them available as free downloads -- just for you.

Enjoy!

Christmas Must Be Tonight
http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=8441195

So Long Awaited
http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=8441194

O Come All You Faithful
http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=8441196

We Three Kings
http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=7136237

Silent Night
http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=7136292

What Child Is This?
http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=7136304

Go Tell It On the Mountain
http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=7136331

Creative Corner #8 -- Unfit for a King

Unfit for a King
words and music by Sean Taylor

And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because here was no room for them in the inn. Luke 2:7 (KJV)

Manger straw must have been rough on your newborn skin
Mother’s pain to welcome you
Father’s tears as he holds her hand and hears you cry
The smell of waste was everywhere

Dirty men from nearby fields to greet you
Dirty sheep stumble behind
Mother’s care as she holds you close to feed you
Shepherds leave, the filth remains

You deserved the finest palace in the land
And swaddling clothes of finest string
But when you came you cut through all our twisted values
And revealed this crazy, mixed-up world…
A world unfit for a king

Vagrant child in a city filled with travelers
So unnoticed by them all
Foreign kings bring you your only presents
Your mother treasures all these things

You deserved the finest palace in the land
And swaddling clothes of finest string
But when you came you cut through all our twisted values
And revealed this crazy, mixed-up world…
A world unfit for a king