At home or abroad

When I first came to live in Australia nearly thirty years ago I mostly felt almost as much at home as at home in the UK. But one thing seemed more than passing strange and that was Christmas. To hear a Salvation Army band playing, 'See amid the winter's snow while perspiration poured down the musicians' faces was odd, to say the least. I had to adjust my thinking and adapt to the climate in the southern hemisphere, realising that Christmas was not merely a date on a calendar or tied to particular climatic conditions. It was meant to be an experience in the heart. G.K.Chesterton wrote of Bethlehem as a place where God was homeless and all men are at home. And so,wherever we are we can be at home with the Christmas story and find a universal application of the truth that God is with us wherever we may be.