Hey, Substack friends, I hope you are having an unhurried Advent season (which, I keep reminding myself, is so much of the point). There are a couple of new Jonathan_foster podcast episodes out, one about reading the book of Genesis with Liz Charlotte Grant and another with my psychoanalyst friend, Quique Audrey. Before I get to my open and relational advent story, I wanted to make sure you knew about the new course on Alfred North Whitehead that my friend, Andrew Davis, is teaching in 2025. Whitehead is far from easy, but even a partial grasp of his vision can be existentially and spiritually transformative. For more info, see whiteheadsuniverse.com and for a great conversation about why it’s a good time to adopt Whiteheadian thinking, listen to my conversation with Andrew.
Joseph gripped the rope tightly as he led the donkey down a rocky ravine. He felt the fibers digging into his hands, the heat from the friction. He glanced up at his young wife shifting and swaying with the animal. She was looking down, carefully watching hooves navigate dusty stone and gravel.
The three of them—Joseph, Mary, and donkey—descended without speaking, the only noise the shuffling of rock, the scraping of hoof, the occasional grunt of Joseph guiding and pulling the animal. Mary dipped and swayed with one last kick of the donkey’s legs up and over the edge. The mountains rippled off to the north as if a giant muscular arm had swept the land in front of them, leaving it smooth and endless. The trail snaked down a gentle slope for a bit, then, under the rush of clouds, made a straight run out to the edge of all they could see.
Mary began speaking again, picking up where she had left off, talking about empires and emperors.
“What’s old Octavian calling himself again?” Mary asked. She squinted off into the horizon, shaking her head, thinking about the pain of being forced through a census.
“I think he’s going by Caesar Augustus now,” Joseph replied.
“Caesar Augustus? Like his uncle Julius? Do you imagine every dictator coming out of Rome now will call themselves Caesar?”
Joseph laughed. “Probably.”
Mary shook her head. “I don’t like it,” she said.
“His name change, or what he’s forcing us to do?”
“I don’t like either one,” she quickly answered. “Although I don’t blame him. Octavian is an unfortunate and moronic name. If that were my name, I’d change it too. Sounds like something you’d name, oh, I don’t know, a donkey or something.” She patted the donkey’s neck and said, “In fact, that’s what I’m going to start calling our donkey here. Octavian, the ass.”
Joseph laughed again. “I like it,” he said, “but if we cross paths with the authorities in Bethlehem, maybe it would be best to not mention’s the donkey’s name.”
“Yes,” Mary raised her voice, “onward Octavian the ass. Drag the poor and the tired, the weak and the pregnant across the desert to Bethlehem.” A raven landed close by, but Mary didn’t notice; she was busy thrusting her fist to the sky. “Yes, oh mighty ass, you must count us and get our tax money, to figure out your labor force, to build your empire!” The raven ducked its head and immediately flew away.
Joseph watched the bird and thought, I don’t blame you, bird. He draped the rope over the neck of the donkey, confident he didn’t need to guide the animal as much while on level ground. He patted the animal’s neck, feeling the coarse hair between his fingers. “Good ol’ Octavian,” he said.
A few minutes later, Joseph heard a small but distinct ping. He turned to locate the sound and immediately squinted as light reflected off a small piece of metal in the air. He realized Mary had pulled a drachma out of the leather pouch tied around the donkey’s neck. She was flipping the coin in the air.
“Hey.” Joseph laughed. “Be careful with that.”
She caught it, scrunched her nose, looked at the image of Caesar Augustus, then handed it to Joseph and asked, “What’s it say again?”
He wiped the coin with the sleeve of his tunic, then read the inscription. He rolled his eyes and said, “Prince of Peace and Lord of Lords.”
It was her turn to roll her eyes. “Prince of Peace,” she mumbled, “imagine calling yourself Prince of Peace after you slaughtered half the known world, including our little Jewish world? My uncle and your father …” Her voice trailed off.
Joseph grimaced at the thought of the men she mentioned, of the arrogance of Rome, of being forced to live in occupied territory.
“You think any of these Caesars will ever learn, Joseph? Hebrew lives matter!”
Joseph sighed. He squinted out to the deepest, thinnest line of blue on the horizon. When would God help?
He reached his arm up, found the pouch, and carefully reinserted the coin. He felt around at the bottom of the bag to confirm the money was safe. He kept his hand close to Mary as he looked up at her.
Mary was unlike anyone he had ever known. There were obvious things: the beauty of her face, the humor in her personality. Features of which he was certain. And then there were the less obvious things, things he couldn’t quite name: the way she carried herself even on backs of donkeys, and her eyes, fiery and cobalt, the depths of which seemed to throb against the blue of the desert sky behind her as she returned his gaze.
Looking up at her, squinting through one eye, attempting to take her in, he said, “You’re like royalty, Mary.”
It was her turn to laugh. “What?” she asked.
Joseph nodded his head, then looked forward, patting the donkey’s neck as he walked. “I was around Herod’s family once, you know, Herod the Great.”
“Herod the Great,” she scoffed. “Should be Herod, the Terrorist.”
Joseph smiled and raised his arms. “I know, I know, let me finish. A few years ago, I was in Jerusalem when his entourage came through. People, chariots, money, and the way the ladies, well, the way all of them carried themselves. They acted like they were worth something, but it was just a show.” Joseph, still looking and walking forward, pointed up at Mary, “But you, you know you’re worth something.”
The smallest of smiles appeared at the corners of Mary’s pursed lips as she looked at the top of Joseph’s head. She squeezed the finger he still had stretched toward her. She took a deep breath and looked out over the desert.
“I don’t know if I’m royalty, but I am blessed. What God is doing for us will never be forgotten. His mercy flows, like those sand dunes over there, in wave after wave on those who are in awe before him. He shows his strength and scatters the bluffing Octavians of this world. Just wait, Joseph, you’ll see.”
This was not the first time Joseph had heard Mary talk like this. But, unlike the first time, he was now considering believing her. Maybe God really was doing something inside of her. Maybe she really is royalty.
The conversation, like the landscape around them, grew sparse. Mary pulled her shawl over her head to keep her black hair from absorbing all the afternoon heat. For a long time, the only sound was Octavian’s occasional snort or tail swish.
That evening they sat by the fire as it popped and cracked. The smoke was tentative, curling in and around sticks and logs, gaining courage, winding upward. Mary followed the smoke trail until it became lost within a sheet of sequin stars, itself lost within an ocean of black.
Joseph poked at the fire with a stick. Then he leaned back against the donkey and said, “Mary, tell me again what the angel said to you.”
He watched her looking up into the sky. Her countenance reflected shades of oranges and yellows, heat and light. She looked at Joseph for a moment, then back up as if seeing the angel above her that very moment. She repeated what the messenger had spoken in short soft sentences, “A Holy Spirit will come upon you. The power of the Most High will overshadow you. Your offspring will be called holy. A son of God.”
Joseph tried to find a Holy Spirit in the night sky as he thought about God’s presence hovering over Mary. “Hey,” he said, “do you remember what Torah says about creation?”
“Which part?” She moved her leg as a log cracked open by her foot.
“Right at the beginning.” He leaned over to flick a fiery ember back into the fire. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void. Darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God hovered over the waters.”
Joseph felt a rise in Mary’s energy. It was more than just the reflection of fire or stars. There was something alive in her eyes. She smiled and nodded. She stared up at the stars again and said, “Yes … the Spirt of God hovered …”
Joseph sat up straighter. “Do you think …,” he began to ask, then quieted as he began to be overwhelmed by the thought.
“Yes, I do think. I think the Spirit of God hovered over the waters of the deep, creating something out of the chaos of all that was. It’s more than, well,”—she looked into the flames lapping up and into the air—“it’s more than that he created out of nothing. He hovered over what was already there. It was the wildness of the face of the deep; he ordered it, he energized it.”
“Without God, it would have just been chaos,” Joseph chimed in. “Yes, lost and without form. But God made something new. He took what was there and made something new.” She placed both hands over her enlarged belly and finished the thought. “Joseph, I think he’s doing something new again.”
And for the first time since Mary’s outlandish announcement, Joseph thought about hope. He felt warmth. It wasn’t the fire. This warmth was spreading from the inside out. But then he hesitated for a moment, which kept the heat at bay. He held it there as he recalled what she had been like when she had first told him the news of her pregnancy: on her knees, fists coiled, pounding the tops of her legs, tears running down her cheeks, begging Joseph to believe that she really had been visited by an angel.
He remembered the bitterness.
Her tears.
His anger.
He toyed with returning to that emotion, that feeling that had defined him most of the previous year. He thought about reengaging anger, something to corral and control the vulnerability he felt. But the moment he began to push hope down and return to the pain, his thinking changed.
Why? Why would I return to that? Why would I choose to be bitter? Why do I imagine that life is better if I’m in control? What does it even mean to be in control? No, that’s not who I’m going to be.
Mary’s words, like the smoke curling and dancing around the fire, were curling and dancing around Joseph. Joseph, I think he’s doing something new again.
He lingered in the threshold of hope and control. And then? He chose hope. He sensed warmth well up and lift out into the heavens.
Mary shifted up on her knees and faced him. He turned his body to look squarely into her face. He whispered, “God’s hovering over us as he hovered over the foundation of the world, isn’t he?”
Her cheekbones lifted, her eyes an opening aperture, a witness to the energy he felt. She slowly nodded. “Yes,” she said quietly. Reverently. Her countenance so strong, her spirit so fierce.
And the sky flashed with the testimony of a shooting star.
And embers, like tiny emissaries, drifted away with invitations.
And the creosote wood burned the fragrance of something new.
It was so real that Joseph actually looked up above him to see if the Spirit of God was hovering over them at that very moment. Mary snatched a tear from her eye and laughed watching him peer into the heavens. They both lay back against Octavian, the donkey.
Mary eventually dozed off inside the crook of Joseph’s arms, but Joseph didn’t sleep much that evening. He feared the extraordinary and holy moment would eventually dissipate just as the fire at their feet was dissipating. So, throughout the night, he woke himself to search for the Spirit of God hovering.
Above them.
All around them.
We don’t know the end of our story any more than Joseph and Mary knew the end of their story. Life is risk. Risk cannot be corralled, coerced, or controlled. The only thing we can expect is the unexpected.
But if God hovered over and lived within the chaos 13.8 billion years ago and made something new …
And if God hovered over and lived within the chaos of Mary’s life and made something new …
Maybe S(H)e can hover over and live within the uncertainty of politics, the wildness of ecological crisis, the insecurity of racism, the unpredictability of pandemics, and … over and within you.
You are being invited.
Right now.
In this moment.
In this moment.
And now, in this moment.
To risk. To hope. To love.
It’s an invitation that’s been going on for all eternity. It’s our origin and our end, though using the word end within the context of an ever-changing, dynamic Spirit of love seems to be pointless.
All endings are really beginnings.
If the sermon this Sunday deals with eschatology—you know, the “end times”—just remember that the Greek word eschaton is translated not only as “end” but also “edge.” Find the preacher in the lobby afterward but don’t make a big deal out of all of it. Just find them and give a hug. Hold them long enough that it starts to feel weird. Pray over them, with them, around them.
Breathe.
Be patient.
Be entangled.
Wait about a year. No, three. Then tell them about the edge.
The Spirit hovers along the edge of all we are. If you listen, out in the desert under a panoply of stars, or in the stillness of your own heart, you can hear the movement of air, the deepest whoosh of wings oscillating over all the uncertainty. You’re being invited to live at the edge, to let go of fear, to stop trying to control. You’re being invited into liberation from anxiety.
If we recognize the Spirit is hovering over us, willing to partner with us in the very contractions of our chaos, something miraculous and new could be birthed in our world. And our world desperately needs it.
Don’t give up.
I only just saw this, that's a little eerie. Good stuff.
That was so lovely!! Wow!