A Christmas Poem, 2015

Over Bethlehem, Santa’s sleigh slows down

and the jangle of harness bells ceases

on this holy night, the stars brightly shining,

a night to celebrate a savior’s birth;

but that savior never came, some would claim,

just a baby born of low birth, from Nazareth,

too poor for a proper birth, nurses and attendants,

a child born in a stable among the animals, bleating and cooing,

and the first visitors but the shepherds, common laborers,

not men of influence, and the wise men, too,

scholarly men following a star, some cosmic oddity foretelling,

just a baby, forgotten in his growing up, no savior at all,

only tales told of an immaculate birth and questionable lineage;

but in Bethlehem, Santa’s sleigh slows down and the jangle

of harness bells ceases in homage to a savior born

this day in the city of David, heralded by the angels

on this holy night celebrated, the stars brightly shining,

just as Santa slows and the bells cease over the ancient

cities of Ur and Lumbini and Mecca, homage to saviors born

on holy nights like this, Abraham, Siddhartha Gautama, Muhammad,

led by a light of faith serenely beaming on a new

and glorious morn, a grateful chorus, sweet hymns of joy

raised in a weary world seeking Peace, seeking Him.

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Dona Nobis Pacem