The First Monday in December (2021)
White Washed
Brown Jesus.
Black Jesus.
Olive skinned baby.
I am so sorry that we made you white.
Silver Bells.
Blue Christmas.
Red-Nosed Reindeer.
Why is it so hard for us to remember that you were cream coloured, chocolate, walnut, shades of olive wood? Or to imagine this could be so. Or re-member the people of sun and sand and Mediterranean salty air embody a different kind of body.
Glorious bodies.
Emmanuel. Immanuel.
God. With. Us.
You showered us with kindness when we shut you out. No room. No place for you in our pews and green stacking chairs. We are too busy making a list. And we checked it twice but you didn’t make the cut.
Too inclusive. Too many boundaries crossed. Too much like a liberal. Wrong colour (wait a minute, was Jesus not white?).
Too much emotion baby Jesus. Get your act together.
Be a man. A man like us. A white man.
A white woman.
A white woman like me.
“This piece is an experiment with spoken word/ poetry that expresses the tension I experience as a white woman who follows a brown Jesus as best she can. Each winter I tell my long-suffering friends, I have a complicated relationship with Christmas. The imagery, music, and culture of a privileged euro-centric white-washed Christmas always leaves me apologetic. And searching for something more real. ”
