The story slips easily off my lips when the minister begins to read. 

 

 

We are part of the retelling not because the details have changed, but because they are constant. People are not listening so that they can acquire more facts but because the remembrance resonates deeply. Frankincense. No room. Pondered in her heart.

 

We have been participating in Christmas pageants for thirty years in four states without changing the script. One time we had a heavenly host with five little girls whose lineage spanned India, Japan, Mexico and Holland. They danced for joy across the alter and tossed velvet stars. Music linked the brief scenes together like red circles in a paper chain between the green ones. 

 

Part of the power of Christmas is that it is a shared story. Following the same verses year after year, generation after generation, we build ties with each other. Community grows. It is a story that gives us hope, telling us that in a place where thorns and apathy fester there is a portal for love to come into the world.

There is another script that hasn't changed for ages. It's the story of boy meets girl, and both overcome challenges by finding true love.  Generation after generation each says "I do," committing their lives and fortunes to a higher purpose. Again and again they venture out to escape the Herod of self-righteousness and find the healing myrrh of compassion. And when the journey reaches its darkest times they may even hear the whisper of angels, if they are looking, or see a star gently moving to a place where True Innocence lays sleeping in their lives.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by Jenny Stein

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