Merry CHRISTmas!

Let the Stable Still Astonish!

Let the stable still astonish:
Straw-dirt floor, dull eyes,
Dusty flanks of donkeys, oxen;
Crumbling, crooked walls;
No bed to carry that pain,
And then, the child
Rag-wrapped laid to cry
In a trough.
Who would have chosen this?
Who would have said: "Yes,Let the God of Heaven and Earth
Be born in this place.
"Who but the same God
Who stands in the darker, fouler rooms of our hearts
And says "Yes, let the God of Heaven and Earth be born in THIS place!"

-Leslie Leyland Fields