Where should we go?

Travel, whether over the river and through the woods or Midway to JFK, is an integral part of this season. People make plans to spend time with family and friends, near and far. Some people balance family connections by alternating years with different limbs of the tree or by having multiple celebrations. Travel plans, even just across town, contribute to the hustle and bustle of the holidays.

The same is true for the various characters in stories associated with this time of year. Frosty runs through the town. The Grinch goes up and down the mountain. Santa traverses the world in one night and children who worry about him finding their house can now track his sleigh online.

In the early chapters of the Nativity story, a newly pregnant Mary goes about 80 miles, probably walking, to see her older cousin Elizabeth who is three months from having her first child. After John is born, Mary, now in her second trimester, returns to Nazareth where she then has some time before she and Joseph, along with countless others, have to travel about 70 miles to Bethlehem for the recently ordered census. For that trip Joseph may have rented or borrowed a donkey so Mary could ride rather than walk. They made the trip with a lot of faith. Faith that they would arrive safely and find accommodations. Faith that perhaps Mary would make it back home before the baby arrived. But there were no rooms and a kind innkeeper showed them a stable where Joseph and Mary used straw for comfort and warmth.

Angels tell shepherds around Bethlehem about a newborn, destined to be the savior. They decide to go see for themselves, but all they knew was that the baby boy was resting in a manger in a very busy city. So they hurried with a lot of faith that they would be able to find that baby by depending on the word on the street where that particular child was. My guess is each time they asked someone about a baby in a manger they told of their heavenly visitors and the birth announcement. Some neighbors probably laughed; others may have tagged along, so that by the time they found the correct stable, there were more than just the shepherds arriving to pay their respects.

The wise men also had to ask for directions. Their GPS, the star in the east that they faithfully followed, only got them so far. Unfortunately, they stopped at the wrong service station, for King Herod had heard of the prophesies of a King to be born in Bethlehem. Asking that they keep him informed, Herod sends them on their way, but the wise men would still have to continue to ask about a newborn when they got into the city. By that time there may have been more of a buzz about one particular stable which they finally found. These foreign visitors had the sense to not share their findings with Herod and they returned to their homelands by a different route.

Joseph and Mary traveled six more miles to Jerusalem to take their son to the temple for thanksgiving and dedication and soon after that fled to Egypt to escape Herod's massacre of infants. A couple of years later they returned home to Nazareth.

Many around the world today are asking where they should go. They are traveling, in faith, following dreams, hopes and promises, seeking a safe future. They are walking, running, boating, flying, sometimes following leads, but often just moving to get away, unsure where they are going and what lies ahead. 

There is a lot of rhetoric about closing borders, about forcing many who thought they had finished their journey to leave. Just like the stress that comes with preparing for and having people, even family and friends, in our homes, there is stress in welcoming strangers. Our country needs to find a way to balance that stress with prudence and do the right thing, answering the question, "where should we go?" with a resounding "here!" 

Marilyn