“Any one thinking of the Holy Child as born in December would mean by it exactly what we mean by it; that Christ is not merely a summer sun of the prosperous but a winter fire for the unfortunate.” ~G.K. Chesterton (b. 1874- d. 1936)
It is moving closer to the Nativity of Our Lord, the 25th day of December. On that day, we will gather about the homeless God, and find our hearts at home (paraphrase, GKC). Yes, no matter where our mortal bodies might be, we can be home for Christmas; for we find the sense of home beside the crib of Our Infant Savior.
Christ, the winter fire for the unfortunate (G.K.C.), is coming; and the story of His first day is wonderfully described in the following poem, The House of Christmas, by the English writer G.K. Chesterton:
There fared a mother driven forth
Out of an inn to roam;
In the place where she was homeless
All men are at home.
The crazy stable close at hand,
With shaking timber and shifting sand,
Grew a stronger thing to abide and stand
Than the square stones of Rome.
For men are homesick in their homes,
And strangers under the sun,
And they lay on their heads in a foreign land
Whenever the day is done.
Here we have battle and blazing eyes,
And chance and honour and high surprise,
But our homes are under miraculous skies
Where the yule tale was begun.
A Child in a foul stable,
Where the beasts feed and foam;
Only where He was homeless
Are you and I at home;
We have hands that fashion and heads that know,
But our hearts we lost – how long ago!
In a place no chart nor ship can show
Under the sky’s dome.
This world is wild as an old wives’ tale,
And strange the plain things are,
The earth is enough and the air is enough
For our wonder and our war;
But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings
And our peace is put in impossible things
Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings
Round an incredible star.
To an open house in the evening
Home shall men come,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.
Yes, this sense of being home is found around the crib at Bethlehem wherein lies Christ, the winter fire of the unfortunate.
Let us become as children (again) around this crib, our home. Charles Dickens declared the goodness of being childlike in his novel, A Christmas Carol, when he said:
“For it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child Himself.”
May you have a good day.
~SCF
