A Story Meets the Visual Art: A Shepherd's Tale
About The Visual Arts: Thank you, Matilde and Nicola, for visualizing the story through painting within the short reflection time. I would name it "A Palm Tree of the Rising Sun". Matilde shared a very interesting and thoughtful story time with children telling us about how resilient a palm tree is in the storm in Mexico. Here's a little more colour symbolism in the arts: this painting expresses some Palestine and Trans colours. Please stay tuned for Christmas Fiesta Video to see the arts again with all the stunning visual elements and intercultural dancing energies.
The Story: A Shepherd's Tale
Did you hear that Jesus is born?
Ah, right. I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Yosef. The baby’s father’s name is also Yosef. Yosef is a very popular name.
I just saw baby Jesus, and my heart feels like it's going to burst with love.
I am a shepherd, by the way. That’s what I do.
There’s something people call the “Midwife’s Tale.” I want to tell you my story, let's call it, a “Shepherd’s Tale”. Ah, I like that.
I want to tell you tonight what the birth of Jesus means to me. I’m uneducated, but I’m a thinker who loves to count the stars.
The world I live in now seems like it's in the middle of a deep night. Not a night that’s quiet and calm with warm fire and tender love, but a night that people say might as well be the end of the world, an Apocalyptic night. Roman soldiers terrorize and threaten us, and our king, Herod, only fuels this oppression, offering us no protection. Poverty, tribulation, and oppression are so long-standing that people often wonder if this night might be the end of the world. They hope the Messiah will come to end this cold, uncaring place and start everything anew. People believe that the world as it is now is just wrong: nothing new, good, beautiful, can start in a place of inequality and pain. So, many wait for the world’s end.
I was one of them. Often, sitting far from the other shepherds in the middle of the night, counting the stars and watching over a few sheep, which are not even mine, I would find myself in tears. Unable to find hope, peace, joy, or love to fill my heart.
A few days ago, I was sitting alone on a hill, counting the stars, hoping for a powerful and strong Messiah to save me and lead our people to a new world - one of peace. But my heart was empty and heavy with grief. Then suddenly, a group of other shepherds came and told me this story. A host of angels appeared, shining so brightly with light, that if it were the Roman army, we would have already experienced the end of the world. My friends were shaking with fear, unable to lift their heads, but the angel said, “You have been living in an era filled with fear; God doesn’t want to add another fear. I bring you a message of peace you’ve never experienced before. In the poorest part of the village below the hill, in the stable of an inn, a baby named Jesus was born. Jesus is like a wildflower that will spread far and wide, a new birth of peace. When nights get too long, people’s hearts can get drenched in darkness, but he will be like the dawn, opening people’s hearts to God’s love and peace.”
I just came from seeing the baby Jesus, and the light in his eyes and the sound of his breath makes my heart brighten with hope, like the light returning to a dark land.
What I realized is this. We were waiting for the end of the world, sort of the “death” of the world, but the gift of God is the “birth" of a new creation even in the midst of chaos and grief! The birth of Christ isn’t about bringing the world to an end, but bringing an end to oppression. It's not that there’s a beginning only after the world as we know it ends. Even admist chaos and terror that we are going through, the beginning is now. The birth of new creation is now. The beginning is like how the dawn emerges. it’s the courage to see God’s love and justice rise again and again, like the rising sun or wildflowers. May peace on earth prevail with those who celebrate the birth of possibility every day!
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