We had been on the road for a week. Others had done it in four days but that was only achievable if you were on the road eight hours each day and that just wasn’t possible. Why did it have to be now, now of all times that the decree had come out? Everyone had to return to their ancestral town and register for taxation and whatever you did you didn’t defy a decree and certainly not one that involved money. We hoped the baby would wait but what could you expect being jolted around like that for days? Now the contractions were coming faster, and the town was full, every bed taken. One last try. ‘Please my wife is having our baby is there no where?’ So, we end up in the barn with cows and sheep and straw and smell and our baby is born, and he is safe.
The story as told happened long ago, yet it is current today. It is of families dislocated by occupation and war whose lives are dictated from afar by the powerful for whom an individual is of no consequence. It is of the care of a man for his wife and his desperate efforts to protect her and their child. A story of a businessman who sees their need and gives what he can. And so, the story goes that following the birth there is joy and celebration from the richest to the poorest. The safe birth of a child is always cause for celebration but there is another cause for delight; that despite cruelty and intolerance we also have the capacity for compassion, generosity, kindness, and love. It is these magical ingredients mixed with sound knowledge and wise judgement that produces the outcomes we strive for in our work.
May your holiday break bring you and all you love the best we offer each other.
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