Photo Credit: allerleirau/Creative Commons
Perhaps it will happen this way:
Someone will hand you a package.
You will untie
the ribbon of Handel’s Messiah
and Bing Crosby’s White Christmas,
Tear off
the glittering paper of department store windows,
and strings of colored lights
Open
the box made from old cards,
friends names fading
beneath sweet greetings
Toss aside
the tissue paper of stockings
stuffed with oranges
and candles lit in hope
And hold in your hands
The desert at twilight
colors sinking across
its sandy shoulders
like a silk scarf tossed
The sky at night
stars skating too slowly to see
over black ice
tracing elegant curves
The old growth forest
new shoots springing
from the root of stumps cut down,
A thousand faces of human terror
and human joy
singing.
You touch it all,
an ache transformed.
earth, life, evening sky.
This is the Gift.
Open it.
— Dr. Rebecca Ann Parker, president, Starr King School for the Ministry
Photo Credit: goingslo/Creative Commons
Thumbnail Credit: asenat29/Creative Common
