23 December 2024
Feathers
Part 23
The story so far: Professor Maggi King, an astronomer in the University, has observed a star’s peculiar movement.
Outside the observatory Maggi and her group looked up and there it was, unmistakable to their expert eyes, their own star just a shade to the east. They walked the mile through the frosty streets until they were outside the place directly under it. There was a warm glow of candlelight through the windows of St Leonard’s Chapel and Maggi could hear the congregation singing with deep meaning:
“They lookèd up and saw a star
Shining in the east beyond them far.”
When the song was over, Maggi and her colleagues went into the chapel, between the kids and gown-ups squeezed up to each other like roosting hens on their perch, and saw Maryam holding her baby, with Joe standing beside her. They knelt down on the floor, in front of the family.
Maggie said to Maryam, “We have followed star MT0202CMB an unprecedented 27 degrees moving in a largely westward direction across the Delta Quadrant from its position about 8.3 kiloparsecs away. It is right above us: we have been led to this place by this star, and now we know why – to witness the coming of your child. What can we give you?”
“There’s nothing we need,” said Maryam. “We have this beautiful gift, for you and for everyone.”
But what a world he had been born into, thought Maggi. “We’ll give him the most precious things we can.”
“Our love,” said Casper her postdoc, “for his fragile humanity in a universe of a septillion stars.”
“And our commitment,” said Melchior, another postdoc, “to the precious planetary life he shares.”
“And our time,” said Balthazar, her doctoral student surely passing his viva in this moment, “when he wants to ask us questions.”
Maryam smiled at these gifts. How could anyone give a present to Josh who was already giving so much? The chapel was aflame with love: worshippers arm in arm, the morning’s antagonisms forgotten, an acceptance of each other so rich you could smell it in the candlewax, a deep sense that there was hope for the whole world that night.
The astronomers left, and as they went, Maggi deleted the email from H. E. Rod, enquiring as to where the star was resting over the University. There’s a new governance in the world, she thought, of welcome, of love.
Pieter Coeck van Aelst (1502-1550), The Adoration of the Magi, The Annunciation, Resting during the Flight into Egypt, Palazzo Bianco, Genoa
Yours,
Donald.
Revd Dr Donald MacEwan
Chaplain