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Born to raise the sons of earth, Born to give them sec-ond birth.

All the way down the center aisle, Barb Wiggin kept the “pillar of light” on us; what possible force could have compelled her to do that? There was nowhere to go but out, into the snow and cold. The cows and the donkeys tore off their heads so that they could get a better look at him; for the most part, these were the younger children—some of them, a very few of them, were actually smaller than Owen. They stared at him, in awe. The wind whipped through his swaddling clothes and his bare arms grew rosy; he hugged them to his birdlike chest. The Meanys, sitting scared in the cab of the granite truck, were waiting for him. The Virgin Mother and I hoisted him into the cab; because of how he was swaddled, he had to be extended full-length across the seat—his legs lay in his father’s lap, not quite interfering with Mr. Meany’s control of the steering wheel, and his head and upper body rested upon his mother, who had reverted to her custom of looking not quite out the window, and not quite at anything at all.

“MY CLOTHES,” the Lord Jesus told me. “YOU GET THEM AND KEEP THEM FOR ME.”

“Of course,” I said.

“IT’S A GOOD THING I WORE MY LUCKY SCARF,” he told me. “TAKE ME HOME!” he ordered his parents, and Mr. Meany lurched the truck into gear.

A snowplow was turning off Front Street onto Elliot; it was customary in Gravesend to make way for snowplows, but even the snowplow made way for Owen.

Toronto: February 4, 1987—there was almost no one at the Wednesday morning communion service. Holy Eucharist is better when you don’t have to shuffle up the aisle in a herd and stand in line at the communion railing, like an animal awaiting space at the feeding-trough—just like another consumer at a fast-food service. I don’t like to take communion with a mob.

I prefer the way the Rev. Mr. Foster serves the bread to the mischievous style of Canon Mackie; the canon delights in giving me the tiniest wafer he has in his hand—a veritable crumb!—or else he gives me an inedible hunk of bread, almost too big to fit in my mouth and impossible to swallow without prolonged chewing. The canon likes to tease me. He says, “Well, I figure that you take communion so often, it’s probably bad for your diet—someone’s got to look after your diet, John!” And he chuckles about that; or else he says, “Well, I figure that you take communion so often, you must be starving—someone’s got to give you a decent meal!” And he chuckles some more.

The Rev. Mr. Foster, our priest associate, at least dispenses the bread with a uniform sense of sacredness; that’s all I ask. I have no quarrel with the wine; it is ably served by our honorary assistants, the Rev. Mr. Larkin and the Rev. Mrs. Keeling—Mrs. Katherine Keeling; she’s the headmistress at The Bishop Strachan School, and my only qualm with her is when she’s pregnant. The Rev. Katherine Keeling is often pregnant, and I don’t think she should serve the wine when she’s so pregnant that bending forward to put the cup to our lips is a strain; that makes me nervous; also, when she’s very pregnant, and you’re kneeling at the railing waiting for the wine, it’s distracting to see her belly approach you at eye level. Then there’s the Rev. Mr. Larkin; he sometimes pulls the cup back before the

wine has touched your lips—you have to be quick with him; and he’s a little careless how he wipes the rim of the cup each time.

Of them all, the Rev. Mrs. Keeling is the best to talk to—now that Canon Campbell is gone. I truly like and admire Katherine Keeling. I regretted I couldn’t talk to her today, when I really needed to talk to someone; but Mrs. Keeling is on temporary leave—she’s off having another baby. The Rev. Mr. Larkin is as quick to be gone from a conversation as he is quick with the communion cup; and our priest associate, the Rev. Mr. Foster—although he burns with missionary zeal—is impatient with the fretting of a middle-aged man like myself, who lives in such comfort in the Forest Hill part of town. The Rev. Mr. Foster is all for opening a mission on Jarvis Street—and counseling hookers on the subject of sexually transmitted diseases—and he’s up to his neck in volunteer projects for the West Indians on Bathurst Street, the very same people so verbally abused by Deputy Warden Holt; but the Rev. Mr. Foster offers scant sympathy for my worries, which, he says, are only in my mind. I love that “only”!

And that left Canon Mackie to talk to today; Canon Mackie presents a familiar problem. I said, “Did you read the paper, today’s paper—The Globe and Mail? It was on the front page.”

“No, I’ve not had time to read the paper this morning,” Canon Mackie said, “but let me guess. Was it something about the United States? Something President Reagan said?” He is not exactly condescending, Canon Mackie; he is inexactly condescending.

“There was a nuclear test yesterday—the first U.S. explosion of eighty-seven,” I said. “It was scheduled for tomorrow, but they moved it up—it was a way to fool the protesters. Naturally, there were planned protests—for tomorrow.”

“Naturally,” said Canon Mackie.

“And the Democrats had scheduled a vote—for today—on a resolution to persuade Reagan to cancel the test,” I told the canon. “The government even lied about the day the test was going to be. A fine use of the taxpayers’ money, eh?”

“You’re not a taxpayer in the United States—not anymore,” the canon said.

“The Soviets said they wouldn’t test any weapons until the U.S. tested first,” I told the canon. “Don’t you see how deliberately provocative this is? How arrogant! How unconcerned with any arms agreement—of any kind! Every American should be forced to live outside the United States for a year or two. Americans should be forced to see how ridiculous they appear to the rest of the world! They should listen to someone else’s version of themselves—to anyone else’s version! Every country knows more about America than Americans know about themselves! And Americans know absolutely nothing about any other country!”

Canon Mackie observed me mildly. I could see it coming; I talk about one thing, and he bends the subject of our conversation back to me.

“I know you were upset about the Vestry elections, John,” he told me. “No one doubts your devotion to the church, you know.”

Here I am, talking about nuclear war and the usual, self-righteous, American arrogance, and Canon Mackie wants to talk about me.

“Surely you know how much this community respects you, John,” the canon told me. “But don’t you see how your … opinions can be disturbing? It’s very American—to have opinions as … strong as your opinions. It’s very Canadian to distrust strong opinions.”

“I’m a Canadian,” I said. “I’ve been a Canadian for twenty years.”

Canon Mackie is a tall, stooped, bland-faced man, so plainly ugly that his ungainly size is unthreatening—and so plainly decent that even his stubbornness of mind is not generally offensive.

“John, John,” he said to me. “You’re a Canadian citizen, but what are you always talking about? You talk about America more than any American I know! And you’re more anti-American than any Canadian I know,” the canon said. “You’re a little … well, one-note on the subject, wouldn’t you say?”

“No, I wouldn’t,” I said.

“John, John,” Canon Mackie said. “Your anger—that’s not very Canadian, either.” The canon knows how to get to me; through my anger.

“No, and it’s not very Christian, either,” I admitted. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry!” the canon said cheerfully. “Try to be a little … different!” The man’s pauses are almost as irritating as his advice.

“It’s the damn Star Wars thing that gets to me,” I tried to tell him. “The only constraint on the arms race that remains is the nineteen seventy-two Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union. Now Reagan has given the Soviets an open invitation to test nuclear weapons of their own; and if he proceeds with his missiles-in-space plans, he’ll give the Soviets an open invitation to junk the treaty of nineteen seventy-two, as well!”