The Animals Speak

(First published in Writing and Illustrating’s Annual Holiday Book Extravaganza, 2022)

Ideas are strange creatures.  Sometimes it’s impossible to remember—or ever to know—where the concept for a particular story came from.  Ideas can sift down out of the air.  They can rise up through someone else’s story.  Occasionally an idea of mine that becomes a book lives in my bones for a long, long time before ever finding its way to the page.

I’ve carried the myth of the animal’s speaking at midnight on Christmas Eve since I was a child.  I was once convinced that, if I could only stay awake long enough on that blessed night, I would find my cat had important things to say.

But it wasn’t until recently that I pulled that tale out, turned it over in my mind, and found my own words for the telling. 

“Long and long the story has been told . . .”

That’s what every story needs.  A beginning.  A place to stand.  And then, of course, an ending.  A reason for the telling.

“Forever and forever, the story shall be . . .

sung in treetops,

whispered in woods,

bayed in yards,

purred on pillows . . .

and repeated in

home after home after home

by everyone of God’s creatures.”

I love the Nativity story.  Well, everyone loves the Nativity story.  Of course.  Because who doesn’t love a baby?  Especially when that baby lies in all that prickly straw for two thousand years and still smiles so sweetly.

But I love the Nativity story for other reasons, too.  For the way it forms the foundation of Christianity.  God-in-us.  The Divine Mystery arriving in the world as we all do, helpless, dependent, amazed.  And utterly holy.

I love the Nativity story, too, for the way it permeates our culture.  More deeply even than Santa Claus and Christmas trees and gifts.  More deeply if more quietly.

Because God-in-us speaks beyond the bounds of any church or any doctrine.  In that baby, in those awe-struck animals, lies a truth we can all share.

Incarnation.  Not as a one-time event but as an every time one.

Every human becoming.

You.

Me.

Every beloved.

Every stranger.

Even every enemy.

Sacred. 

“The Child is here!

Rejoice!”