| A Christmas prayer for children abused by war  by Neal Christie An evergreen bends bough low to arch, breaks through still ground and gestures with supple arms; we circle round, caught and cradled, in a stumble toward you. Emmanuel, frozen, too soon winter worn thrown back by numbing bursts of flash and fear we wait for the sound of nativity roots crackling underfoot, when with mud stained knees and callous caked hands each child stolen in war may be received as gift, a sacrament folded into you. Blanket us in to hear Bethlehems sobs of runaways and refugees; alight covert secrets committed in the name of security; bend bough low to embrace muffled whispers, boundaries breached; consecrate memories of betrayed histories rewritten; reverence child-angels tremors for sanctuary; disarm habits that market abuse in shaded confessions of war; publish glad tidings that land-loss violation cease, evils of a long gone past. For your own limbs are bruised, your sap runs red as blood, a trunk carved into an icon of torture. You Emmanuel lose innocence as a child, In Baltimore, Baghdad, Gaza, Washington, D.C. Where we feel only isolation and shame, remind us that you will always be, the healing Tree of Jesse. Blanket us in with mantles of wooly folds, the musty, mossy smell of life freshly cherished without harm. Amen. The Rev. Neal Christie is assistant general secretary of the Ministry of Resourcing Congregational Life for the General Board of Church and Society in Washington, D.C. | 
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