something interesting happened during this Christmas. I was invited to judge the Crib competition in a newly created parish, Panthackal, Mother Teresa Church. There were six of them registered for the competition. Two were grand creations, others were ordinary. There was one crib that I liked for the novelty it presented. The other judge seemed to be highly puritanistic and did not like this one I am talking about.
This one had interestingly two birth narratives. One in a manger and another in the middle of a concrete jungle. Jesus as an abandoned baby. The crib had been divided into two parts. One which did not have electricity and used only lamps for the light. I saw the boy lighting the torch at the entrance of this crib which had some likeness of Bethlehem. The other side was well lit with proper roads and well laid out lawns. The older Bethlehem had a little manger for Jesus with Mary, Joseph and the shepherds with the animals around. In the modern Bethlehem Jesus was an abandoned child in the middle of a lawn, no people not even animals around. In the background a posh hospital is made in a thermo coal replica. A star was found precariously suspended between the two birth narratives.
This crib had a lot of work done in the mind and others with the body. Somehow I left the crib with thoughts of Christmas that would have been, in streets of the cities, in the garbage pits and on the operation tables for abortion and many more nameless places where children are abandoned or killed before they are born.
Our Christmas has lost its content.......
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