Years ago, some Christians started a movement to celebrate Christmas in July. It was an attempt to decouple the real meaning of the birth of Christ from the obscene excess of the December holiday.
Maybe that was what inspired me, a couple of years ago, to start writing this poem on the morning of July 4th. Or maybe it was “doublethink” a word coined by George Orwell in his novel, 1984, that described the effort people had to make in his future nation ruled by Big Brother, to believe that Big Brother’s lies were true when they knew the real truth.
At any rate, I finished it this morning.
Merry Christmas.
Eternal Refugees
Jesus, Joseph, and Mary
Constantly on the run
Herod once slew kids with a sword
Now he carries a gun.
They flee by burro, or ferry,
By bus or inside a truck
If they make it to the border and cross it
It is more by grace than by luck.
Powerful men become scary,
When deep inside they are afraid
That their people will wise up and rise up
So they tell us to be afraid of a Babe.
So the Holy Family gets harried
From Judea to New York State
“Murderers! Rapists! Carriers of disease!”
The Holy Family is met with hate.
Jesus, Joseph, and Mary
Locked in cages and camps out of sight.
Our leaders say, “They are not like us.”
For once, they are right.