Further Greetings;
I was thinking about Mary last night. Thinking how she wandered such a long way to go to Bethlehem, which was supposed to be her home, only to find that she wasn't welcome there--everyone said: "No room for you." Because she was a young woman, unmarried and pregnant, she was an outcast, unwelcome--homeless if ever anyone was. No one cared that an angel had come to her in a dream and told her she was pregnant with the son of god--people in her time, as in ours, can have a hard time believing dreams, and an even harder time believing young women.
She just kept on walking, just kept on knocking, and her trusty friend Joseph (and the donkey, let's not forget) walked with her--what a man, unafraid to stand by her side, and to be outcast and homeless by virtue of his association with her--he believed her even if no one else did. And then, when they are just so tired they can hardly stand, and Mary so pregnant she's about to give birth right there on the Donkey, an innkeeper says: "No room in the inn...but you can stay in my barn." What courage the innkeeper had to agree to put up these renegades--he risked it all to house them--the neighbours would NOT have looked fondly on a man who housed an unmarried pregnant girl. He also risked becoming an outcast by association.
But what a risk--in his barn, with "only" animals and Joseph as her witness, Mary gave birth to God, they say. That innkeeper's barn became a Temple of the Most high. Miracles started happening---wise men and wise women came from far away because they saw what the common folk of Bethlehem didn't see--they saw that this outcast Mary was the vessel of God, and they brought her gifts to honor her. Gifts so valuable she would never again have to worry about how to provide for herself or her son.
And the shepherds came, too--those humble, truth-loving men and women who stayed outside the city, watching the stars, NOT lining up in the Inns to pay their taxes, to get counted by the Roman officials. (Remember, Bethlehem's Inns were crowded because the Roman Emperor had ordered that "all the world should be taxed"--and so everyone who believed in Rome was supposed to go back to their home town to be COUNTED AND TAXED). The shepherds knew better, and stayed away, stayed outside, knowing what most people refused to admit--that Rome was a monster and to pay taxes to it was to consent to slavery.
For all the corruptions this story has suffered at the hands of the Church over the years, its beauty and truth-force still stands. It reminds us that true things are often invisible, except to those with "eyes to see." It reminds us that it is hard to give birth to god--and what is god, if not the beauty and the truth that each of us carries and longs to bring into this world that can seem so hostile to anything beautiful and true. It reminds us to pay little heed to the opinions of taxmen, businessmen, and soldiers, and to trust instead in what animals, wise men, and outcast shepherds think.
May each of us find room, if not in the inn, then in the manger. And may our rulers see the ridiculousness of making it illegal to sleep in the manger.
in peace at the coldest and darkest time of the year,
Kristen Woodruff.
Photo thanks to Shelley Bluejay Pierce
