Nativity

No one envisions or desires to raise a child on the streets.

I’m in my mother’s house. Looking at a bookshelf littered with nativity sets from all over the world. One from France grabs my attention.

It’s simple. No frills or excess. Just a mom, her baby, and a man. Mary, Jesus and Joseph.

What struck me wasn’t the lack of barn, animals, straw, star, manger, shepherds or wise men. The things found in all the other displays. No. It was not that. It was, instead, the raw reality that these three figures cast.

A woman, lying on her side, looks at her son with very tired eyes. Her body is shot, and slumped, as she tries despartly to find some comfort on the hard ground. This is her reality. The look on her face isn’t one of Holy peace as much as it is “holy crap what have I gotten myself into?”

No one envisions or desires to raise a child on the streets.

Then there’s the man. He knows he’s not the father of this child, and yet he knows someone has to do something. But what? And so he sits. Upright but not so proudly. There is great weight dragging on his shoulders. Resentment, or perhaps anger, buried in the crag of his furrowed brow. He’s asking, “What the hell have you done?” To himself. To God. Awaiting an answer that doesn’t seem to come. 

Nobody pictures themselves raising a family on the streets, unable to provide simple necessities like food and shelter. 

Inbetween them a baby is asleep. Wrapped only in a blanket. Lying on the same hard rocks and filth stained dirt. Feeling the same cold wind, hearing the same unfamiliar sounds of a foreign land. It’s only a matter of time before he soils his only earthly possession.

His eyes are closed. He is asleep. Unafraid. Unconcerned. Unharmed. It will be years before he will asks, “what?” or “how?” But right now, in this raw nativity scene, he is forever at peace. An unspoken light within him draws this woman and this man close. 

He has yet to realize that the streets are no place for a family, or anyone, to live. And as if now, he has no idea that one day he will draw all people close to his internal light.

The heavens, and all that is in it, will be his home. And by the words he speaks and by the love he shows those who come to him will always have a home. Through his hospitality and charity all will find shelter and food, protection and peace, to call their own. For him God will provide. Through him God will prevail. And so will all who draw towards the light.
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One baby. A mother. And a man who will accept the responsibility to see that this light shines forever.