[Sundaycommunity] Fwd: Shalom's will be done

[Arthur Blomme]

-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: 	Shalom's will be done
Date: 	Thu, 18 Dec 2025 11:15:13 -0500
From: 	Ted Schmidt <jtschmidt at bell.net>





> Merry Christmas friends
>>
>> In this holy season I've watched my printer die. I can only respond 
>> with this modern mode of email.
>> I somehow ran into this amazing poem, almost 25 years old.This Jeremy 
>> Frost
>> is part of Confess UK Anglican priest and lawyer
>>
>>
>>   CONFESS is for Christians of all denominations who wish to speak
>>   out boldly against genocide, ethnic cleaning, and other crimes
>>   against humanity, taking place in the lands that cradled the
>>   Abrahamic faiths, and who wish to amplify, with the addition of
>>   their own voice, a message of solidarity to victims of such crimes,
>>   and a message of challenge and rebuke to all in civic authority who
>>   are complicit in such crimes.
>>
>>
>>
>>   On 2 April, 2002, Israel imposed a military siege on the Church of
>>   the Nativity in occupied Bethlehem after some 200 Palestinians took
>>   refuge inside the church from the advancing Israeli army. 
>>   Bethlehem, occupied West Bank – For the first time in two years,
>>   the Christmas tree in Bethlehem
>>   <https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/12/6/bethlehem-lights-up-christmas-tree-amid-hopes-for-economic-recovery> lit
>>   up the night sky, restoring a glimmer of joy to the birthplace of
>>   Jesus after seasons overshadowed by Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza
>>   <https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/12/6/gaza-ceasefire-at-a-critical-moment-mediators-say-at-risk-of-collapse>.
>>
>> Palestinians watching the lighting said the celebration carried a 
>> dual meaning: Hope in the Nativity and a yearning for freedom from 
>> the Israeli siege gripping Bethlehem and cities across the occupied 
>> territory.
>>
>>
>>
>>   Poem: On the Ending of the Siege at the Basilica of the Nativity,
>>   Bethlehem (10th May 2002)
>>
>>
>> Through olive-groves as old as truth
>> The breezes tire; while cars lie crushed
>> On pavements meant for games and youth
>> And washing lines. The hungry, hushed
>>     Indoors, see tanks mount every car;
>>     And flagged, on every tank, Goliath’s star.
>>
>> Is all this worse, this stench of war
>> And power, than on that bright morning
>> When, from the mess, the emperor
>> Reclaimed the spot and made it sing?
>>
>>     Or worse than when the King of all
>>     Chose for himself this cave and cattle stall?
>>
>> For times like this He came in mire
>> And myrrh and milk and blood; for such
>> A time the angel and his choir
>> Explained what made this birthing much
>>
>>     More universal than it seemed -
>>     He came that such as this might be redeemed.
>>
>> O little town of Bethlehem -
>> Still forced to live another’s lie!
>> But force or fear cannot condemn
>> Worship (which is both soil and sky).
>>
>>     (What God on earth would thus conceal
>>     In simple bread and wine a freedom meal?)
>>
>> With worship, and with wine and bread,
>> the hopes that almost died are yet
>> Not crushed on pavements, but instead
>> Rise, swirling up like incense: let
>>
>>     */Shalom/ (which is God’s will) be done,*
>>     And justice ripen in the West Bank sun.
>>
>>
>>
>>
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