Liverpool Nativity

It was like Advent... waiting in the dark, wondering how long the suffering would end... and languishing for the light. Well, I had been hoping to watch Liverpool Nativity on BBC3, but instead, was tending the sick. At last, she was willing to rest, to sleep, and I headed for the flickering of the glowing Box. I only caught the last three minutes of Joseph and Mary singing with delight and wonder and terror at the beauty in their baby bundle... but it took no time for the emotion to grip me, for Gabriel's words to the crowd to seize my heart with joy and grief and hope. The refugee family are sent into the crowd, and the crowd are commissionned: "welcome them among you... swathe them in your love..." - or something to that effect. It was the word "swathe" which caught me. Swaddling, clothing, snuggling, like the bands that surrounded the newborn baby, compensating for the loss of the maternal womb, reassuring as mothers' arms. Oh, that our communities might again be nurseries for lost children, secure places beyond the womb, for all to be born among us and thrive!