The story so far... You're currently on our features and projects pages, with material ranging from the satirical to the theological. For more features, click here.     It's hard to get beyond the glitz of Xmas and the sentimentality of the stable and manger. But at the warm, beating heart of the Christmas story is "the word becoming flesh". In a Christmas meditation, Martin Wroe thinks aloud about the body and God. what colour are you God and what are your vital statistics what's your body like any disabilities, distinguishing characteristics would we spot you in a crowd transfixed by your looks... or some deformity do you have five senses like us or do you make sense of everything your handshake, is it firm as a vice or slippery as an eel, blue eyes or brown, overweight or undernourished and your breath, does it smell of life or of garlic if the Word was made flesh are you flesh of our flesh bone of our bones is that you there, meek and mild meanly wrapped in swaddling clothes is that you Baby J, Word of the Father (and Mother, and Sister and Brother) now in flesh appearing screaming as you arrive like the rest of us screaming at the shock of the new the shock of the cold and the old and the broken is that you Baby J landing abruptly in now all the way from forever and ever amen slipping clumsily from between a Virgin's legs covered in blood and gunge and straw when moments before you were covered in glory tied to life by a fragile cord sucking on a breast as if existence depended on it what a come down... still, at least you had an audience cows was it, a goat or two did they look on in awe and wonder were the cattle lowing musically or were they a stinking racket little Lord Jesus no crying he makes that doesn’t ring true the thing about flesh is it forces you to cry to prove you’re alive who is he in yonder stall at whose feet the shepherd's fall maybe they just tripped, in the dark like the rest of us, maybe they recognised you up close knew that was you, in the flesh maybe they were just baffled by the cosmic night patterns hypnotized by the funny star and did the flesh inconvenience, annoy anger you, like it does the rest of us, your fleshy inventions did your nose run green your skin itch, flake or bruise red breath catch from asthma chest tighten in fear in this murky, stale world and later on, what did you do about your desires you know, the carnal ones when your imagination bypassed your moral compass and, here’s a thing, apart from the public movement, mountains into the sea, water into wine, where did you go for your private movements are there supernaturally fertile plants there today never barren, perpetually productive with roots for miles, branches into the heavens or are those divine squatting places where you felt quite a lot lower than the angels (wiping your bum with leaves) like every other place, where folks did their business no horticultural miracle for eternal memento and when you were at the end of your considerable wit, when it was all going wrong your friends misunderstanding, losing interest, wandering off when the spirit was willing but your flesh as weak as ours did you wonder why you got into this body business swapping everywhere in general for somewhere in particular flesh is limited, cumbersome, awkward can’t be in more than one place or time did you feel trapped in that frame resent the restrictions of the corporeal when you were incarnate could you recall being outcarnate and did the flesh also exhilarate and excite did you run and laugh and kiss sweat and wrestle and fall in love and if you longed to be more were you also grateful to live on earth as flesh one of us little, weak and helpless tears and smiles like us he knew and he feeleth for our sadness and he shareth in our gladness how's the old body now do you wear a halo or a crown is it of gold or of thorns are there marks on your palms still blood on the side of your shirt ? here’s to the body God for ordinary miracle in skin and blood putting flesh on the bones of our skeletal lives embodying a dream of how life might be lived flesh is all we have but now you know that flesh is not all we are   Martin Wroe is a freelance writer. In another age he would have liked to have been a heretic, but not burnt.