Brothers, sisters, and folded ones – when the Recipe was made dough and dwelt among us, it did not choose the ristorante. The maître d’ looked upon his book and found no line empty, and looked upon Maria and found his heart not so full as his book; and so the Slice of slices was born in the back room of a pizzeria, wrapped in a clean apron, and laid in a proofing tray, as it is written in the Gospel, 2:8.
And the tray had held dough a thousand nights, and knew its work; and it held him as it had held all the rest, gently, and left him room to rise. And the Oven in the corner burned suddenly bright, though no hand had fed it.
And to whom went the announcement? Not to the palace; not to the temple. To the delivery drivers abiding in the car park, keeping watch over their orders by night – the ones whose word was held cheap in that land – to them first came the tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people that hunger. And they clocked back in, for the orders do not deliver themselves, but they drove all that night with the windows down, singing.
Beloved, mark where heaven chooses to arrive: the back room, the night shift, the family that flees by night with a warm thing wrapped against the cold. Blessed for ever is every door that opens to them. If thou wouldst find the divine this winter, do not look up. Look towards the flour sacks and the banked ovens and the car park; and be thyself the door that opens before the second knock.
Amen – and pass the pizza.