Where Will Jesus Be born This year? Not on a pretty hill Far away Not in a gleaming Sanctuary Barricaded Against Our neighbors Not in Lessons and carols By rote In a baby’s exploring Fingers Caressing a star In a father’s voice: The star Represents Jesus A lower room A cold water flat The open air Warmed by animal Flesh in the hospitality Of the Poorest The dying Playing music The violin To comfort caregivers
In the human heart
Get your heart ready It has to break To Receive Him Again For the first Time In a baby’s Curious Wonder In the dawning question In her New and Love-Gifted Eyes
My daughter, Eupha Jeanne, was born in a Boston snowstorm February 3, 1990. At the time I was finishing up my M.Div. degree at Harvard Divinity School. For various reasons I had delayed completing my language work. I found myself growing linguistic knowledge of both Hebrew and Greek, and growing a human being at the very same time. I found Greek difficult; at times I despaired. My Greek Professor was also the head librarian at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge; his kindness and support will never be forgotten. I remember calling him to tell him of her birth, upon hearing her name, he bellowed: “that’s Greek!” Eupha Jeanne was named for her two grandmothers, neither being at all of Greek extraction. Her name is a derivative of the river “Euphrates” –considering the family name of Jordan, together with the Irish “Kenneally” family contributing Jean, and then added to the mix the married name “Niles” — if anything, I took my daughter’s name to be the mark of ancient sacred waters. Her name a melding and merging of races, cultures, and lands.
Dr. Dunkley kept insisting her name had Greek meaning. What do you he meant? “Well,”he said: “I think it means….” What do you suppose he said? All will be revealed, my fellow linguists, in due course.
Three months ago, my daughter and her wonderful husband, AndrewAyodeji, blessed us with our first grandchild, a daughter. Born on the verge of lockdowns, all four grandparents were nevertheless able to gather for the traditional Yoruban naming ceremony held on the eighth day of her life. In the ceremony her names were revealed, for the first time, to about twenty dear church friends gathered to celebrate and feast on ancestry and hope with sides of Jollof rice, puff puff , chicken, beef, plantain, and salads. And, of course, cake. Her name: Selah Orinoluwa. Which, her parents shared, means “pause and reflect on the song of the Lord.” There were about ten other names given her by her elders that day in honor of qualities of character, or of the ancestors. It was a rich and emotional celebration honoring language and naming as having power in all our lives. But back to Eupha Jeanne:
I might have turned to my child, as she named her babe, and said: “Just what I might expect from the girl whose name means “Well Spoken” in Greek.” (At least, according to dear Dr. Dunkley.)
P.S. Dr. Dunkley surprised me again: the final exam was open book and untimed, held in his beloved library. And so, my fellow linguists, I passed the test. And, I am quite sure, so shall you.
The rain/
Has music/
Listen for it/
The crescendo/
Refrain/
Cymbal crash/
Of life/
The dream of/
Fresh water/
The symphony/
Of the never ending/
Recycling/
Of grace
We vote at the behest
Of ancestors who dreamed
Woke up
Put on their traveling suits
To freedom
We are further along
Than it may seem
Change you see is discontinuous
Jagged
Stop and go
So you weary traveler
You ‘buked and scorned brave girl
You sons in Lazarus entombment
have to put on the traveling suit
Of courage
And ride children
Ride
An alignment
Of celestial bodies
Over ancient pyramids
That
Only happens every
Two thousand and some
Three hundred and seventy three years
Happened yesterday
Did it fill the mind sky to remind us
How small we really are
Or to harbinger be
Of evolution
Resurrected
For myriad generations
Aborning
Some history is lived not made/like truth that languishes untold/our lives are colliding like objects/caught in the undertow/of our own gravitational/waves
Those who do
not want to honor
truly honor
Black History
Should not interrupt
those who are
living it
and looking
out of eyes of
endurance
all we can do
is live
what joy filled tears
we never shed
and tell the truth
with love
in the swimming pool
of God’s weary eye
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