Dear Reader:

I don’t think I am alone in visualizing ( as an imaginative child) that I was in the manger with the Baby Jesus. Didn’t you ever transfer yourself there… staring up at the star… and then down at the child in the cradle… at the wearied but proud parents.

I walk around petting the grazing animals and suddenly drawing back in initial fear from three strangers riding camels from afar… regal looking with gifts for the baby… gifts that sparkle and shine. A hush falls over the stable and the omnipotent magnificent star seems to sprinkle magical star beams upon the scene.

Christmas starts with Luke’s version of the Christmas Story ( Luke 2: 1-20.) And then twelve days later… for many religions and denominations it ends with the Epiphany -a time when Christians remember the Wise Men or Three Kings who visited Jesus.

I started thinking this year … from manger scene to manger… Christmas plays out-comparing all the manger scenes it is hard to tell which scene starts the story and which ends it. Is this manger the beginning or the ending?

And does it matter? If you believe in Jesus Incarnate and God as One and the Same … then ” I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.” Revelation: 22:13. There is no definitive ending… because each ending opens up another beginning!

*** Or as Jean-Paul Beauvoir reflects in my Louise Penny story… ” There’s always another story-there is more than meets the eye.”

And the Good News… Each of us exist because God lovingly decided to weave us into His Story.

So until tomorrow… Let us all give gratitude for being asked to become part of the Christmas story, God’s on-going story… through our faith that we, too, like the Three Wise Men , should know the difference as to whom deserves our homage and which things should drive us straight to our knees.

Today is my favorite day… with profuse apologies to Winnie the Pooh for forgetting to add his saying the last two blogs! Thanks Ann Graves for recognizing the omission!