We live on the scraps of Eden. Life — a tragic miracle, an echo of a deeper symphony. The fruit is rationed. Water tastes like metal. Joy comes thin — a brittle leaf in winter wind. The trees are silent. The ground yields only to sweat. Behind us, the flaming sword still burns. There is no way back. Time does not reverse. So we go on — with spit, sweat, blood, semen, and shit. East of Eden, we make children. We make war. We make myths to cradle our ache. We bruise. We hunger.

Kev turns up on Minster Mondays Leeds Minster, cold already by mid-afternoon. We gather from two till four. Games at tables, dice clatter, jokes land, custard creams and aldi knock off penguins. For a moment his hands remember play, how not to brace. Then we gather for worship. The light thins fast this time of year. We light candles and move through the Minster, past life-sized shepherds, Mary mid-breath, Joseph unsure where to stand. Between them, we make space for ourselve

Let the bells ring out for Christmas. Not to cover the silence, but to name it. Not to distract us from the dark, but to announce the light that has entered it. Let them ring for the mystery we return to again— God with us. Not above us, not beyond us, but here. The Word becomes flesh. Not an idea, not a symbol, but a person. Fragile. Dependent. Fully divine, fully human. The Creator steps into the creation, not as a king, but as a child. Not to watch, but to walk with us. To

He Will Return (Advent) He will not return to Eden. Not to clean mornings. Not to soil that never learned blood. The sword still burns. Time does not reverse. What was broken stays broken until it is healed. He will not return to innocence. There is no undoing of the long violence. No erasing of bodies used, lands stripped. He comes instead to flesh that remembers. To earth stamped flat by boots, by markets, by graves. He does not come to make things as they were. He comes th