Advent, day nineteen.

I and  both my kids are dyslexic. We see through different goggles. Over a long career I discovered that dyslexia is not always a good fit with bureaucracy, which is a shame as this was my working world. Bureaucracy is concerned with order and control. If you can measure something, you can encompass it. You can own it.

The advent story has a contrast at it’s very centre between the bureaucratic imperative – mass movements of people conforming to a numbers game – and the individual human perspective – one family, one tiny child. The focus shifts from numbers to the preciousness of personhood.

Humanity is found in both; in our individuality, and out connection to one another. But it can not be measured. It transcends both.

 

 

 

Census

 

We started out so well

United against what was wild

This human animal was above all

Social

 

We did not live by bread alone

There were also rotas

We rose from naked ape

To hairless bureaucrat.

 

Order came out of chaos

So it could be counted

Each one of the beautiful creatures

Is rendered as data

 

There is the law

And the spirit

Quantity

And quality

 

There is me

And there are we.