Thursday, December 21, 2006

G.K. Chesterton on Christmas

[Thanks to Paul Adams for this post.]

A child in a foul stable,
Where the beasts feed and foam;
Only where He was homeless
Are you and I at home:
We have hands that fashion and heads that know,
But our hearts we lost--how long ago!
In a place no chart nor ship can show
Under the sky's dome.

To an open house in the evening
Home shall men come,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.


G.K. Chesterton, "The House of Christmas," from Robert Knille, ed., As I Was Saying (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1985), 304-5

3 comments:

Brian said...

You just have to love Chesterton's poetry. Gloria in Profundis is another great Christmas poem: http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/Gloria_in_Profundis.html

Brian said...

Man, something is just wrong. This one works (feel free to delete my last comment):
http://tinyurl.com/ssar7

Paul D. Adams said...

Upon reading Chesterton's poem many passages came to mind having to do with the incarnation. Consider: He who was made homeless on our behalf that we might have a home (2 Cor. 5:21).

"Foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head" (Lk. 9:58. Meditate also on Jn. 14:2; Heb. 10:10).