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The Barn Doors Open (continued from last post)
The audience quieted as the knock came on the large, rolling barn door. Joseph was standing in the darkness. The innkeeper appeared in the large doorway, and Joseph, motioning to a pregnant Mary sitting on a donkey close behind him, began to explain their plight: “Please, sir, can you give us a room for the night? My wife is about to deliver, and we have nowhere to stay.” “Can’t you see,” shouted the surly innkeeper as he turned and waved with a sweeping arm across the audience, “we are full tonight.” Ah, we were finally on track. What was to be an experience of remembrance and worship was beginning to take…
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Oh Holy Night?
Where is peace? Where is it hiding, when our world is overwhelmingly disjointed and we feel the need to hold it together? I was feeling the need to hold things together one December in the early 90’s. Using the land for our Bethlehem story had been a vision of my heart for years. It seemed that God had given us land with the story written into its very geography. I was directing the “performance” of our not-named-yet nativity once again. My gifts do not necessarily lie in directing, but I determined to do my best. Judd, the behind-the scenes’ director was loyally helping me. The majority of our cast that…
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The First Nativity
We led the animals down the road, Judd holding the lead ropes to the horse and pony, and I with my bucket of grain for the sheep. The beam from the flashlight Judd held in his free hand lit the way through the darkness. At the bottom of the hill, we turned in to the pole shed area which had become the designated spot for our first nativity program. The pole shed area boasted of nice round bales that were stored in the shed. Those bales and the old shed would be the perfect area for our endeavor. With a concrete slab near the fence and feeding troughs along…
