peace – seeing god naked

A well-crafted cradle awaited at home:
masterful hands turned each wood post with care,
expectant love sewn into bedding and quilt.
But the night he arrived, they were so far from there.

Summoned to journey to prove their allegiance
amidst rumors of vengeful tyrant kings,
they cleared dung from hay for a bed in a trough
and shelter from what the encroaching night brings.

Family back home would have gathered to welcome
with kettles and blankets of comfort to spare.
But here, only strangers followed cries in the fields
to a drafty hay barn, oh, so far from there.

This winter my heart is heavy and broken
amidst news of a vengeful tyrant king,
can’t rise to the joy on my twinkling bower
or wish for a chorus of angels to sing.

If I’m wanting for hope or assurance tonight
that the world turns towards peace and all that is fair,
I remember the family huddled in the hay
and all that they’d hoped for, so far from there.

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Jim and Jane Henson’s handmade Christmas card from 1960.

Nelson Mandela’s death reminds me of all the great men and women who put their lives on the line for peace and justice, especial those of my childhood.

As a kid in Catholic grade school in the 1960s I was very aware of what the “reason for the season” really was. It was something more powerful than Santas kneeling before a manger, a fish on a bumper sticker, or a fight in a mall parking lot over being wished the wrong happiness.

We were taught that the message of the first Christmas was the longed-for good news of the coming of peace and justice to those who needed it most: the poor, the war-torn, the oppressed, and to ourselves when we recognize our humble role in the story. The great messengers of my childhood were not just from MY church or MY country, but from all over OUR world, and these men and women literally risked their lives for it.

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