The Work of Christmas

A good friend, Barbara Zelter, recently graduated from Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School. She shared the following poem by Howard Thurman, an alum from the same school and a 20th c. African-American theologian who co-founded the first interfaith church in America. He was a friend of Gandhi.

The Work of Christmas
by Howard Thurman (1926)

When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:

To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among others,
To make music in the heart.