When you consider the question of courage
there may appear in your heart an image of a
ragamuffin child with a scrap of paper
and a stub of pencil found somewhere or other
and having few thoughts of ornaments or tinsel
intent only on writing a letter to someone
maybe Saint Nicholas or some such kind figure
remembered from a story as a helper who
knows better than anyone what a child hopes for
and, so, arrives amidst night’s frozen fogginess
wherever the child may be waiting in the world
on the magical eve of the mystery of happy
endings and there is a tree evergreen or not
bending over all creation its branches boughed
soughing to sleep the thin child atremble with
hope in the cold beneath night’s thin coverlet
and as it is true that a child’s dreaming may be
filled with notions of a sleigh or of Eskimo dogs
pulling a sled, or of a red truck or scooter or sail-
boat or a spaceship full of giving – the common
denominator is love and compassion its sister and
brother – an arc crossing the distance between
waiting in night’s cloak of darkness and joy of
morning’s gift of more than was wished for
or even hoped for delivered beneath the tree by
the helper – maybe you – hand in hand with the
luminous figure of the Christ Child come again.
Amen and Amen
Shared by Margie
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