But where to put him? I thought about a shelf--an interesting take on the Elf on a Shelf!
But I didn't want him to fall off or get lost in the stuff that gets shoved on the shelf. I had similar worries about the other flat surfaces in the office. This time of year, it's hard to clear out a bit of space to do the money counting, because we have so much stuff that's stored in the tiny office.
In the end, I put the baby Jesus in a pot that holds a cactus:
In the weeks since, I've been thinking about this as both an image and an idea. I've worried that we might forget where we put him, echoing the words of Mary Magdalene: "They have taken the body of my Lord, and I don't know where they have laid him."
I've thought of the vision that many of us have of the manger, the image given to us by centuries of sappy greeting cards. In that scene, the manger looks like a cozy place.
In reality, a manger would have been made of stone, since wood was a scarce resource. I have grown up thinking that the manger had hay, and now I wonder if that's true. A potted plant might be a more comfortable place for the baby Jesus.
I also think of the world as a cactus plant: full of prickles and spikes, rooted in the most unlikely places. I think of the cactus as a fairly hardy plant, growing in the most inhospitable places. Finding the Jesus in such a place is an improbable miracle.
Here's a longer view of the cactus plant.
In some ways, the modern office is also inhospitable: full of screens and piles of work that needs to be done. It's a place of the mundane, but also the miraculous.
Our sacred stories tell us that we might be more likely to find God in the margins than anywhere else. The manger is one type of margin. There are many others.
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