A New Kind of Christmas Story

Christmas Eve 1968 - The Good Earth

When I was 10 years old, I remember sitting in the den of our house in Arcadia with my parents, on Christmas Eve, watching the astronauts of Apollo 8 conduct the first TV transmission back to Earth.  Since then, 42 years have come and gone, on this, the Good Earth:

Mary's Song

Photo information here.










Mary's Song
by Luci Shaw

Blue homespun and the bend of my breast
keep warm this small hot naked star
fallen to my arms. (Rest …you who have had so far to come.)

Now nearness satisfies
the body of God sweetly. Quiet he lies
whose vigor hurled a universe. He sleeps
whose eyelids have not closed before.

His breath (so slight it seems
no breath at all) once ruffled the dark deeps
to sprout a world. Charmed by doves' voices,
the whisper of straw, he dreams,
hearing no music from his other spheres.

Breath, mouth, ears, eyes
he is curtailed who overflowed all skies,
all years. Older than eternity, now he
is new.

Now native to earth as I am, nailed
to my poor planet, caught
that I might be free, blind in my womb
to know my darkness ended,
brought to this birth for me to be new-born,
and for him to see me mended
I must see him torn.