Carol Challenge

Today was mega busy and provided no opportunity to get out for a blip...so I'm being creative and rising to the challenge that Tig posed for a Christmas Carol.

No prizes for guessing what this one is...an all time favourite for me!

Having worked for several years along the West Bank, in Bethlehem in particular, it has a very special place in my heart.

I well remember my very first Christmas in the land of Christmas. It epitomised many lines from many carols...

In the bleak mid winter.........it really was so cold!
How still we see the lie...........nestled on the sides of the hill
Stood a lowly cattle shed........Once so humble..now so ornate
Joyful all ye nations rise........Such crowds..myriads and myriads of people
Ding Dong merrily on high....the bells ringing out in the clear night
How silently how silently.......quietly awaiting the start of the service
Hark the herald angels sing....that was us, on cue!!!!

The blind girls I worked with made up the choir that sang in Shepherds Fields and the Church of the Nativity every Christmas Eve. At 3pm we would board the specially ordered bus and drive down through the olive groves, out onto the bare and wild hillside to the vicinity of where those early shepherds would have been guarding their sheep on that night so long ago. The service started promptly at 4pm.

As the wind howled and the stars sparkled in the blackened sky above...where even the caves afforded little shelter....we longed, like the shepherds, to have a flock of sheep to nestle into, using them as windbreaks against the bitter cold.

Straight home as soon as it was over for a warm around the paraffin heaters and bowls of scalding nourishing soup, then, ..all well wrappped up against the even more bitterly cold wind, a walk of 3 kilometres from the home to Manger Square in time for the 9pm service taking place in the courtyard of the Church of the Nativity.

Pushing our way through thousands of visitors making their own pilgrimage, being searched by the numerous Israeli soldiers whose thankless task was to maintain a semblance of order, the somewhat harrowing journey was not too different from the one Mary and Joseph would have encountered as they travelled from Nazereth to Bethlehem in accordance with the census of the time.

The crowds would have been as large and as stifling, the sights, sounds and smells of 20th century Bethlehem on Christmas Eve would have been very reminiscent of that same night so long, long, ago. The soldiers would not have been Israelis with walkie talkies and guns, but Romans with swords and shields. Little of the atmosphere, save the buildings, had changed.

Service over...a three kilometre walk back to the home, an indulgent hour around the parrafin stoves with steaming mugs of warming cocoa, musings over the evenings proceedings, and a quiet time to contemplate the true meaning of Christmas before weariness set in, bed called and lights went down on another remarkable day.

Oh yes Bethlehem has some very poignant memories for me. May its message this Christmas speak to you too as we prepare to celebrate, once again, the greatest birthday on earth. 11 days to go!!!

Happy Blipping Everyone