‘‘Lord, why a stable?

with its dirt and poverty and smell,

the need to step with care in the straw.

I could have understood a palace,

much more fitting for a king, God’s son.

Or at least a good middle class home

where everyone knows the right values,

goes to the right school, holds solid opinions,

the sort of background that makes leaders.

But not for you.

The people in your home had dirt under their fingernails,

a sign of honest work, but nothing influential.

And yet your coming broke the barriers,

not through the slow erosion of wave on rock,

but in a quick, star-streaming, blazing burst of Love brought God to man, love levelling the differences.

To see you, to gaze into your eyes,

no need to reach, climb upwards,

or stretch on super-spiritual tiptoe,

simply to kneel,

the only casualty my pride...

The great thing is that your demands

you first made on yourself.

I see you, when I kneel, because you knelt first.

And when I kneel, defences down,

your hands reach out and, suddenly,

I’m standing on my feet again,

and see you looking out from every face.’

(Taken from No Strange Land by Eddie Askew)

with love and prayers

Jenny