Theft

"Filing out of the family van, we saw snowflakes could float, dust-like, up from the monochrome rug that God had unfurled before Maranatha Baptist Church. There, at eye level, they kept us for a second from seeing what we'd driven an hour to see, a life-sized nativity, its figures arranged in semicircle, golden, exotic against the chapel whitescape, I watched Mother Mary peer into the manger, her smile aglow in the vesper light,"

"and caught myself wanting to worship her just once without blasphemy, the way Joseph was, staring not down at the baby but over, into her, with a kind of awe you can't condemn. My parents looked so old and small next to them. Whose life was this size? Up close, the gold paint was scotched and chipping. I could see arches and loops and whorls in the wood grain beneath. It took a while to realize there was nothing in the trough but powder."

A family arrives at Maranatha Baptist Church where snowflakes float up from a monochrome rug beneath a life-sized nativity. The ornate figures stand golden and exotic against the chapel whitescape. Mother Mary peers into the manger, her smile aglow in vesper light, prompting a desire to worship her without blasphemy. Joseph looks over at Mary with an awed intensity. The parents seem small and aged beside the figures. Up close, the gold paint is scotched and chipping, exposing wood grain with arches, loops, and whorls. Recognition of the manger's emptiness settles slowly as only powder remains in the trough.

Read at The Atlantic