faith in action

Christmas is Waiting to be Born

As we celebrate the birth of the Christ child, let us remember “Christmas is waiting to be born/…in all of humankind.”


Nativity of holy family in cages
Courtesy of Karen Clark Ristine

At the United Methodist Building, we welcomed 2019 with the words of Howard Thurman. Church and Society hosted a screening of the documentary, Backs Against the Wall, exploring how Thurman—a teacher, poet, writer, prophet, and mystic—influenced the civil rights movement and struggles for justice in the twentieth-century.

As 2019 comes to a close, as we await the birth of the Christ child, hear the prayerful words of the Reverend Dr. Howard Thurman:

Christmas Is Waiting To Be Born

Where refugees seek deliverance that never comes,

And the heart consumes itself, if it would live,

Where little children age before their time,

And life wears down the edges of the mind,

Where the old man sits with mind grown cold,

While bones and sinew, blood and cell, go slowly down to death,

Where fear companions each day’s life, And Perfect Love seems long delayed.

Christmas is waiting to be born:

In you, in me, in all of humankind.

– Howard Thurman (1899-1981)

As we celebrate the birth of the Christ child, let us remember “Christmas is waiting to be born/…in all of humankind.”

Amen.

Susan Henry-Crowe