Beit Sahour

On Christmas day in Bethlehem, the shepherds watched their flocks, attentively as always. They worried about the rainfall that season, and the quality of the grass their lambs were eating. They concerned themselves with those sheep that looked worn, and argued over the ones who had gone astray, wandered from the flock. There were some certain sheep, who would in quiet hours list quite slowly towards the other shepherds, other flocks. They found in the crook of the far off staff an invitation familiar, and known, and warm. They stretched their necks and baa-ed, coyly. In the hearts of the shepherds, those left and those new-joined, there lived a fire. In the hearts of the sheep – who could know?
At night the sun was setting and the stars would rise as always, so they did. There were some who saw the sky and knew it, like as there were some who saw the sky but as a ceiling full of stars, never remarkable. From this first group came the paltry few, memorialized forever in the crèche, who attended to the Lord Jesus at his birth. No one could know, and even the Gospels extrapolate, whether the starfire burned bright in the hearts of the shepherds, or of the sheep. Who was led, and who followed – who could know?