Every so often,   I have a glimpse of what appears to be the movement of the kingdom.  Only the other day I read how an alcoholic mother abandoned her baby in the edge of the desert. When he was discovered, he was alive. While not in good shape, he was alive, the medical types said, because a pregnant dog nursed that little boy child and he lived.  I wept.

The type is  the peaceable kingdom (Isaiah 11:1-10)

⁶ The wolf shall live with the lamb,
the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
and a little child shall lead them.
⁷ The cow and the bear shall graze,
their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
⁸ The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.
⁹ They will not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain;

The Antitype of the peaceable kingdom appears in the person of an emaciated baby boy and a poor old hound dog. I trust someone was good to her. Jesus told us we would encounter him among the poor.

Here we encounter the holy one in a pitiful but holy nativity.

In hope, in spite of the facts.

JWS