It’s nearly Christmas Day. This is the night that many believe that the king of the universe was born and that a star led wise men to a manger where this king was made flesh and that this king came to save mankind with a promise of eternal life. This is not my mythology. This is not…

But this is a night; some say it is a holy  night, a sacred night. It is only because we believe it is. I can feel a power out there in the cold night. I can feel a heavy energy. My eyes will not soon close in sleep. My heart will not soon cease to ache.

My small, insignificant being desires that everyone, in this night, sleep warmly, sleep in love, sleep in the arms of a benevolent Earth. But my desire means less than a teardrop falling from my eyes or from all the eyes in the world.

There are those that sleep the deepest of slumbers  below the rubble of a bomb shelled city where only fragments of their bones might be found.

There are those who cannot sleep because of the hunger eating at their belly and the bellies of their crying children.

There are those who will not sleep because they have no love, those no one has ever loved, where the scars of a million wounds have healed only to be opened once again day after miserable day.

There are those who will not sleep tonight because they lay uncovered, bare where they float between the pavement and the coal black sky, without a shred of cloth to cover their shivering, aching body.

There are those who will not sleep tonight, who quiver beneath their covers, for fear of what ugly, painful words will be hurled at them, what fists, rocks, knives, guns await them tomorrow because of meaningless differences between them and others.

There are those who will not sleep tonight, because of a million, trillion reasons too horrible to mention.

Those that I love are nestled beneath piles of cozy blankets tonight. Those that I love still anticipate the morning. Those that I love have not experienced hunger, terror, homelessness, chaos, bone-chilling cold, fear, hopelessness. Shall I beg the king of the universe that they never do?

What kind of world is this where there are those who live with blessings and those who do not? What kind of world is this where only some experience the joy of the season and others do not? What kind of world is this?

My eyes will not soon close in sleep nor my heart find solace on this, this holy night when it has been told, the king of the universe was born on earth.