Inside Out?

I only realized I'm an auditory learner about a year ago. How could I have missed this obvious bit about myself?

Last year I went to a Christmas eve candlelight service and I was so moved by one of the readings. It was touching and challenging and I found myself giggling through a few tears. I tracked down the source and purchased the book this year. The poem also inspired my latest sewing project.


Nesting baskets for my secret santa. I designed a set of three but only had time to complete two.
It is reversible, to symbolize how the inside and outside touch one other, and how one can easily become the other.

Christmas is outside in!
The characters in the familiar
nativity scene all come
in from the outside.

Shepherds come,
from outside the city,
despised by righteous people
because their work keeps them outside
the religious in-crowd;
outsiders spending their nights vulnerable
with their flocks,
no one to watch over them.

Wise men come,
wealthy and learned,
but outsiders too.
Strangers in a strange land,
foreigners in odd clothes,
treated with suspicion;
‘not really like us’.

Mary and Joseph come,
Galileans, outsiders,
‘nothing good comes from there you know!’ -
travelers with no package tour,
no hotel reservations.
Are they refused room
because the speak with strange accents?
because they are poor?
because she is pregnant?

Jesus comes,
born an outsider,
living with outsiders,
touching outsiders,
lepers and gentiles,
sinners and prostitutes:
dying as he is born,
outside the city,
on the rubbish dump.

Christmas is for the outsiders:
the ones who need God with them
because they have no one else;
because people fear them
shun them, and shut them outside.
Are we outsiders?

If we recognize our need,
put aside our self sufficient pride,
and admit
that when the darkest night
surrounds us
and we feel the cold draughts
of hatred or indifference
we are afraid, and cannot find
the candle flame within us
to light our path to safety,

then we have
prepared a place of welcome
for the Light that comes,
the Word that speaks our hope and peace,
the One who opens the door,
bringing outsiders in
to warm themselves
at the fire of God’s passionate love -

and Christmas is for us.

Inside Out? is by Peter Trow, from the book Shine on, Star of Bethlehem: Canterbury Press Norwich; 2004 Edition