2013-DEC-13-0947Hrs
Errol, you may not be able to get the music link in, but I hope you can share The Shepherds with Mausicans. Linda
In place of Christmas cards composed by strangers, I send you three pieces. Two poems I wrote about the Birth, and the UTube rendition below, forwarded by my friend David Bratt. May your holidays be in fact, Holy Days. As I write this, I am listening to five hours of carols, five CD's on my player. It makes decorating easier.
I hope you will read the poems, and enjoy them. I thank God for a clear mind, and for the mystery and beauty of Christmas.
To all others who believe in a Supreme Being, Blessings.
Fwd: El Tamborilero
http://www.ijreview.com/2013/12/98522-watch-incredible/
"
Elizabeth, Mary and Joshua.
She too was with child.
It was the second miracle,
after the Angel Gabriel came to the garden.
Elizabeth was old, and had been deemed barren,
by those who cast aspersions at childless women.
Ana, Mary’s mother was dying,
So the girl, puzzled by what was happening to her,
Went to her older cousin, to explain this strange phenomenon.
Elizabeth was expecting her,(how did she know?)
Elizabeth was expecting.
John the Baptiser had already leapt in her womb,
Doing calisthenics for God.
What an odd turn of events,
This conception of a virgin.
This older cousin, barren for years, also now gifted with a child.
Strange and wonderful are the miracles of God.
Ana died. Mary moved in with Joseph
To wait out her pregnancy.
The gossips must have had a field day.
She, seeming sweet and untouched;
and already bulging with child, Joseph’s?
Some Roman soldier thrusting his sword into Jewish maidenhood?
Who knows? They gossiped, and tittered, and whispered, and wondered.
Until, after the birth, on the seventh day,
The blind man, asking alms at the temple gate,
Opened his eyes, saw, and spoke of God’s glory.
“this day hath mine eyes seen” it.
This was the third miracle- the recognition,
of the passing in to be circumcised, of the son of Jehovah
by blind Simeon..
Strange and wonderful are the glories of God,
manifested around the birth of Joshua, Jeshoua, Jesus.
Linda Edwards,Dec.23, 2011
The Shepherds’ Experience
They swore they had not been drinking that night.
They had lit a fire to keep warm,
walking around and stamping their feet to stay alert, in the spring chill;
But they were not drinking.
It was lambing time.
They had to listen for ewes in distress,
If they were not careful, they could lose both mother and child.
They were paying attention.
So when the sky started spinning,
swooshing, moving closer, and receding, they were afraid.
It was all around them, this curious, shimmering light, but it brought no warmth.
They thought this was the end of the world.
Not a new beginning.
One shepherd boy, a mere lad, came up with a newborn lamb in his arms.
The light seemed to shine brightly on them.
They made him take the baby back to its mother;
for fear that she’d reject it.
The boy did not seem afraid at all, at all this strangeness.
Later, much later, statuary and paintings would depict him
kneeling in the stable, with the lamb held closely in his arms,
near to the child,
the infant Jesus, the Lamb of God, sleeping quietly.
Whatever was added on, embellished,
Whatever was fact;
This we know in our hearts,
Something phenomenal there was.
A happening, you might say.
A happening that changed the world.
Linda Edwards
Dec. 2011"
Linda E. Edwards
Linda E. Romain.
Lecturer in English and History
1967-1969
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