The philosopher Martin Heidegger eloquently expresses man’s position of being “stuck between” the glory of the divine and the pain of a mortal all-too-aware of the immortal. “Man, as man, has always measured himself with and against something heavenly,” wrote Heidegger. “Man’s dwelling depends on an upward-looking measure-taking of the dimension, in which the sky belongs just as much to the earth … In poetry the taking of measure occurs.”

Essentially Heidegger is making the point that man defines himself, his being, through art and poetry—which alone are the devices by which we can take measure of the dimension where the sky (heaven) touches the earth (our world); or, as we have seen, where the eternal star met the little town of Bethlehem. Art is born, like Jesus, mystically at the intersection of this-worldly being and that-worldly mystery. As George Steiner says, “There is language, there is art, because there is ‘the other.’”

¶ 8:44 AM