Nativity

Arisen by birth. Borne. The scene of the nativity. This scene of nativity. A figure adorned in a space suit. A wise man bearing gifts?

What to make of an astronaut appearing from nowhere. “The only thing I don’t understand is that astronaut.” Of course not. The astronaut, divided from the scene by the bubble he inhabits, makes no sense. The compass that does not not know its name. The map that does not know its borders. The journey in search of destination. There is no sense to be had here in the manger. It’s nonsense.

Because the thing that has happened. The thing we witness upends the world. The borne child births a new kingdom of heaven. The wise man finds himself on a new planet.

So from where did this wise man come if not space? Reentering from the stars he also surely used to navigate. Will I be able to breathe the air when I get there? Will the light from the star burn? So many questions this astronaut must have had. The figure is properly adorned. A wise man, this astronaut. Resonant as well.

There, amongst the animals, a child is born. Born a god traveling as a man. An astronaut too, then. But a dead astronaut to be sure. It’s written in the stars. The scene of this birth is already a scene of death. The linens the baby Jesus is swaddled in foreshadow the linens the dead Jesus would be wrapped in. Entombed. Sealed up in a stone bubble.

Dead astronauts were no different than living astronauts. Neither could shed their skin. Neither could ever become part of what they journeyed through. Suits were premade coffins. Space was the grave. Better to think of yourself as dead already. There was freedom in that; liberated the mind to roam quadrants father than the body.

But a body still. A double. A triple. Three dead astronauts. Born to die. Borne dead. Arisen by birth. Arisen from death.

Bethlehem, we have a problem. This is a mission doomed to failure. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God. But sometimes the mission doesn’t fail, or fails differently. Astronauts go out and come back. But they come back falling stars. Irradiated and weak, but bearing gifts and wiser. And us wiser for it.

We are all of us falling here on earth. Hoping daily and in small ways to occasionally rise before falling again. All of us borne fallen and failing. As we feel our weight return. Borne again and again. But perhaps one day a certain kind of failure might be enough.

An astronaut figure stands in the midst of the Nativity scene. Guglielmo Mangiapane/Reuters

Italicized text is quotes from, in order of appearance, Dead Astronauts/Jeff VanderMeer, Ronald Reagan’s Challenger Speech, “The Commander Thinks Aloud”/The Long Winters, Dead Astronauts/Jeff VanderMeer.

Thanks to Casey Boyle who asked me to the write this.