I’m always baffled when self-professed “rationalists” object to the supernatural claims of religion—that a virgin could give birth, that God could be three persons. Modern science contains just as much mind-bending absurdity.
Without some physiological sublimation of the inert font into a living poem—whether via breath or the movement of ocular muscles along a line, fingers across Braille—the poem remains ink on a page. If a poem augurs any holiness, it begins in the body.
Story is everywhere these days as a commodity. And that’s a betrayal of the brilliance of story. Story, if it means anything, is always changing. Story should never be convenient, or pretty, or nice.
Imagine Mary's shock at finding out that, without any say in the matter, she was pregnant. Even if she thought it was an honor to be impregnated by God, I’ve got to think it was a complicated moment for her.