Around The Corner
Night Sounds
As a journalist, when I hear any whisper of a story that I would like to write, I am attentive. In fact, I am often asked, "Is there any major story that you would like to have written?"
W-e-l-l, I am really not a major news-breaking writer. Hard news is usually bad news and I have chosen to be a good-news writer. I am a human-interest writer more than anything else. And yes, I know just the story that I'd choose to cover -- the really good news story -- if I had been around when it occurred. Please come with me and listen in on the possible interviewees that I might have queried on a long ago night:
After traveling so many miles, Joshua and Miriam felt grateful for their sleeping room at Bethlehem Inn. There were no stables left to house their donkeys but a sturdy olive tree served their need. They had tied their animals well. Feeling grateful that they had lodging, they both fell into a sound sleep.Shortly, Miriam awoke to the sounds of a newborn's wail and a distant song. The sounds captured her attention. It made her think of singing with the women at home for special occasions, when she twirled and played a tambourine to praise God on holy days. Startled, she nudged Joshua awake, "My Darling, please listen, do you hear it too?"
Joshua rubbed his eyes, then rubbed his ears to be sure. "Yes, Miriam, there's music flowing through the air." He walked to the window, looked toward the fields and hills where hired men herded sheep. He exclaimed, "It sounds like a jubilee chorus. What's it all about -- and why in the midst of night?"
"Joshua, please don't think me mad but in my pounding heart I think Messiah is come. These sounds are like nothing I've ever heard before -- they sound so heavenly. I want to seek out the sounds."
"Let's go see what's happening," he urged, smiling, "Messiah come! Can it be?"
As they gathered their cloaks around them to ward off the chill of the night air, Joshua and Miriam spied shepherds rushing with quick steps to an area behind the inn. The couple had arrived with others who had come for the census count. But none of the other travelers were aroused as they were. However, they saw the shepherds, running to a cave about 200 feet behind the inn.
"Surely the shepherds aren't planning to steal our donkeys are they?" Miriam inquired of her husband. "Shepherds rarely wander into town, especially at night," Joshua noted. "I'd better investigate."
As they rounded the corner of the inn, they saw a cave behind it that they had seen in daylight, but now there was a glow about the cave.
"What can this be?" Hurrying to catch up with the shepherds, Joshua pulled on the back of a sleeve of one of the shepherds, "May I ask, what you are doing here?"
Startled, the aged shepherd, who lagged behind the younger sheep tenders, looked deep into Joshua's eyes. "Sir, angels sang to us on the hillside and gave us this message: 'Unto you in the city of David is born Christ the Lord!' So we're coming to worship this baby-Messiah."
"Are you sure?" Joshua questioned.
"I'm sure!" the old shepherd insisted, eyes glistening with tears.
Joshua turned to his wife and saw her tear-streaked cheeks, as she stood in the brightness of the star shine. "Miriam, you know what this means? Messiah really has come!"
"If He's born in a cave," she said, "his mother needs my help."
As they followed the old shepherd, Miriam's face beamed as she saw the young mother, probably no more than sixteen or seventeen years of age, caressing and singing a lullaby to Messiah. Beside her knelt the father, casting loving looks of awe between the babe and his beloved. Miriam backed up. With upturned face to Joshua, she spoke softly.
"She doesn't need me, she has all she needs." §
Betty Kossick has been a freelance writer since 1971 and considers herself a poet at heart. She can be contacted at bkwrites4u@cfl.rr.com.
