Animating Bethlehem > Marble Collegiate Church

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Monday, December 26, 2011

Animating Bethlehem
By webmaster @ 12:01 AM :: 245 Views :: 0 Comments :: Sister Carol Perry

Bethlehem needs probing in prayer...

I loved those early childhood evenings after Christmas when supper was underway in the kitchen and I was free to rearrange the figures in the stable, they represented our family's accumulation over decades of living. Jesus in the manger
had come from Germany with some ancestor so he was much larger than anyone else. That never bothered us, although visitors sometimes thought it odd that he dwarfed the Mary and Joseph on either side of him.

In my play time I would rearrange the figures and put Joseph outside to do chores or advise Mary to prepare dinner while Joseph babysat. The magi were usually still wandering along a road to Bethlehem since they could not come until January 6. So they were sometimes on the piano or after the presents had been removed they could come down to floor level. The shepherds made regular journeys from the "fields" behind the stable to see if he were still there. Sometimes the lambs came too. On other occasions they were left to graze on my imagined
hillsides.

Depending on how long it took to put a meal on the table, my playtime at Bethlehem was long or short. I was usually careful to get everybody back in their accustomed postures before I left the stable for another day. That playtime has come back to my mind with the added insight that I must have realized even then that Christmas was not a fixed picture but a living action,
that life for those figurines had to proceed beyond a birth to the next part of the story.

So, do animate Bethlehem for yourself in these blessed days by spending some time in prayer with the real people behind the tiny statues. What might it have been like to meet the Child's needs amid visits from curious neighbors, helpful town dwellers or others who had just heard this strange news from the excited
shepherds.

Don't let Bethlehem be limited to one frozen scene because there are spiritual riches to pursue during these days.

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