Poem
Christmas is Waiting
Christmas is waiting to happen
Outside, a vacant hillside
Lies silent, strangely empty
Of any angel’s choir.
A stable waits
For bookings at the inn to multiply.
Distant Kings study charts
And keep gifts in cold storage,
While shepherds plan their memoirs
In expectancy of unexpected fame
And keep a chapter free
for miracles.
A small velvet patch
In the black night sky
Stands ready to hold a new born star,
And oppressed people everywhere
Cling wildly to prophecy and song
And whisper the word: Messiah.
They’ve switched on the lights
In Oxford Street,
Counting off the buying days.
Like Guardsmen on parade,
shops are stocked and standing by,
revving up the engines
of their debt powered swiping machines,
and history watchers mark another year
in the slow count to 3000.
But here an old man lies
In the stairwell where he fell three days ago
And no one knows.
A girl loiters
In a streets unholy halo
To sell the only thing she owns
That men will pay for.
And here an infant sleeps
On a sack on the hard earth floor
Where even a mother’s hand
is empty
and there are places where Christmas
is still waiting
to happen.
Gerard Kelly
Thought
We can get so swept along with our own preparations, that even the appeals that drop through our letterboxes become just junk mail, another begging letter, more recycling. Christmas seems so far away to some people, this year, support the Old Tea Warehouse, think about Save the Children and the awful statistics Sally gave us when she visited a couple of weeks ago and try and spread the spirit of Christmas to those dark forgotten places.
Prayer
Lord
We are all God’s children
We know that we should love our neighbour
Challenge us Lord to help those who are perhaps not loveable,
Who don’t fit into the worthy cause slot,
But who never the less, need to feel your love through the touch of another.
Amen
No comments:
Post a Comment