I like to watch the kids\u00a0set up the Nativities each Christmas. One thing I have noticed over the years is that children often set up the figures in a close circle around Jesus, each figure as close to the Christ Child as it can be without excluding anyone, even the animals. This simple arrangement makes sense to a child and gives us a view of the backs of shepherds and wise men, and very little view of the baby.<\/p>\n
Tonight I watched Mark set up a Nativity like the figures were in a huddle and then change his mind and open the circle a little bit. He turned a few figures so they were in profile view, allowing us to see not only their expressions, but the one they\u00a0worshiped.<\/span><\/p>\n Perhaps there are times when we need to huddle in close and focus on our faith, but more often, I think we need to open our circle and share our reaction to the Savior’s presence in our lives with others.<\/p>\n I want to be really good at being a shepherd, welcoming others into the circle. I want to be like the angel who gets to tell the good tidings, “Jesus lives!” and, “He loves you!” I want to be like the wise men who study and have a true understanding of their King. I want my life to point to Christ, just as each figure in the Nativity looks to Jesus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I like to watch the kids\u00a0set up the Nativities each Christmas. One thing I have noticed over the years is that children often set up the figures in a close circle around Jesus, each figure as close to the Christ Child as it can be without excluding anyone, even the animals. This simple arrangement makes … Continue reading Nativities<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-according-to-angela"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12834"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12834\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12868,"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12834\/revisions\/12868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.angelaross.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}