Every day can be Christmas day for a Quaker
Willem Furnée, a Dutch Quaker, last December published an article in its monthly magazine, De Vriendenkring. Marieke Faber Clarke, a member of Oxford and Swindon Area Meeting, has translated the piece so it is available to Anglophone Quakers.
Luke is the only evangelist who tells us how the shepherds in the field were urged by angels to search for the child in the stable. The angels set out and find Jesus in a manger at Bethlehem (meaning the Bread House). Is this a romantic story of two thousand years ago, or is it the description of a mystical experience? Mystical experience Nowadays we can seldom experience the majesty of a clear night sky because an excess of artificial light obscures the nocturnal darkness. But if I have the opportunity to look at this wonder, I am overwhelmed by the magnificence of the stars. Then I am filled with awe and sometimes I feel at one with the cosmos and all human beings, those alive now or those beyond.