Poetry
Take a deep breath. It is the eve of Christmas.
We don’t often take time to read poetry. I love knowing that we are called God’s poema (in Ephesians 2:10 it’s translated as handiwork, workmanship, masterpiece). I love knowing that we are like a poem crafted by the Supreme Everlasting Almighty Loving and Holy Poet.
Take some time to read this beautiful poem aloud (poetry is meant to be read aloud, you know).
ONE by Luci Shaw
Winter, and very cold,
and the night in its deepest.
The politicians,
as usual, double-tongued.
The town chaotic,
teeming with people.
And tonight, as often
in winter, in Bethlehem,
snow is falling.
I always love
how each flake,
torn from the sky,
arrives separately
without sound, almost
unnoticed in
a flurry of others.
How each one (on a clear
night) lies there glittering
on the round breast
of snow, crisp
and in tact, as wholly itself
as every radiant star
in a sky sparkling
with galaxies.
How many new
babies tonight
in Judea, coming
like snow flakes?
But plucked,
dazzling, from the
eternal heavens
into time,
tonight is born
The One.
Luci Shaw was born in 1928 in London, England, and has lived in Canada, Australia and the U.S.A. A 1953 high honors graduate of Wheaton College in Illinois, she became co-founder and later president of Harold Shaw Publishers, and since 1988 has been a Writer in Residence at Regent College, Vancouver, Canada. Shaw has lectured in North America and abroad on topics such as art and spirituality, the Christian imagination, poetry-writing, and journal-writing as an aid to artistic and spiritual growth.
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