At Nazareth

How did it start,
this idea of God-among-us?
More natural 
to place God on a throne
amid the thunderclaps
and singing stars.

God's God, after all
and due worship, adulation,
no mere workman
with rough joiner's hands,
or village lass
of water-bearing status.

It was the day
she fetched that second jar,
pausing near the well to catch her breath,
swallowing slight queasiness,
she knew for sure 
she was carrying him.

Not really welcome,
this unexpected baby. 
'A grave misdemeanour'
the Rabbi said.
And what her mother said 
was unrepeatable.

So sudden.
Not yet seventeen and now
a carpenter's wife, a mother
and, though the oldest, not exactly
the daughter her family 
could embrace with pride.

Returning from Egypt,
exhausted, with Joe and child,
she found an unanticipated stigma
hung round the family.
She felt avoided, shunned,
no longer Nazarite.

Yes, the persistent odour
of difference settled
and, strangely, things began
to change. As much 
as some could scarcely bear 
her company, others came:

young Hannah, terrified
she'd fallen pregnant,
Elizabeth, not coping
with her toddler's tantrums,
ostracised by the young mums
who thought her old and stuffy,

Joe's apprentice,
a lad from out of town,
glad to find a couple
sympathetic to ambition
and wider aspirations,
broadened by their time as refugees,

one day, a priest,
a friend of Simeon, bringing
Jerusalem luxuries,
enquiring after the boy,
reminding her of past intimations
of blessing tinged with unease.

'How are the mighty fallen,
the humble lifted up?'
The neighbours prattled,
'Look,' they said,
'how this disgraced girl's house
has become a magnet for

rich and poor,
outcast and pillar of society!'
They all come, and somehow,
one evening, on the rooftop,
find themselves star-gazing
and speaking of God's Word.

©Janet Henderson 26th November 2016