<\/p>\n
Do you believe in Santa Claus?<\/p>\n
I do.<\/p>\n
Miracles are in the air every day.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The old man on the street corner<\/p>\n
His face beaten and weathered.<\/p>\n
Ancient eyes sink in his head<\/p>\n
And beg desperately for life.<\/p>\n
His staff is a shopping cart<\/p>\n
Carefully parked at his side,<\/p>\n
Filled with a blanket and old sweater<\/p>\n
Lucky \u2013 it is all he has.<\/p>\n
Are we are his miracle?<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The child in the hospital bed<\/p>\n Tied to tubes of liquid,<\/p>\n Watched over by boxes of coloured lights<\/p>\n That break her silent death\u2026<\/p>\n Sour odour fills the room<\/p>\n Matching the paleness in her face;<\/p>\n Her eyes are aged\u2026yet breathe the hope of the rest of her life.<\/p>\n Every day a pantomime visits her bedside\u2026.<\/p>\n Is this her miracle?<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The teenager —<\/p>\n Lost between childhood and adulthood<\/p>\n Trying to learn lessons he can hardly imagine<\/p>\n Wanting to know them now —<\/p>\n He speaks volumes against everything<\/p>\n Yet is dishevelled in disbelief<\/p>\n Knows nothing yet everything at once;<\/p>\n Lost in the abyss between two worlds.<\/p>\n His miracles are waiting for him.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n This year, a young woman<\/p>\n Was lost in life<\/p>\n Her head a blank page<\/p>\n Her heart broken.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The sky hung low,<\/p>\n Draped with a blanket of grey.<\/p>\n Mountains soared high,<\/p>\n And a rainbow was simply a coloured cloud in the sky.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Then one day it happened.<\/em><\/p>\n The miracle.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t a person or a place,<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t a book or a visitation.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t something she did<\/p>\n Or something she didn\u2019t do.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t a child or an adult.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t a god, or a spirit.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t what she\u2019d prayed for,<\/p>\n Or what she\u2019d given up on.<\/p>\n It was a true miracle.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Oh! This miracle was disguised.<\/p>\n A clever costume.<\/p>\n A miracle disguised in a face,<\/p>\n Worked through a heart.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Perhaps a red coat and a white beard would have best-suited this miracle.<\/p>\n For like Christmas Eve in the eyes of a child,<\/p>\n Her miracle had no physical reality.<\/p>\n It was a miracle of love.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n So now I wonder.<\/p>\n What is it about Christmas<\/p>\n that has always touched my heart?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n As a little girl, I knew<\/em> the magic of Christmas morning;<\/p>\n As a big girl, I chose<\/em> to believe\u00a0 it,\u00a0 and as an adult, I created<\/em> it.<\/p>\n But today, this year, I know.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We do not create miracles;<\/p>\n They are created for us.<\/p>\n They suit themselves into a clever disguise<\/p>\n And are revealed through our own soul\u2019s eyes.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Santa Claus does exist.<\/p>\n Perhaps as a man in red,<\/p>\n Perhaps as a woman at a child\u2019s bedside.<\/p>\n Perhaps even as the man on the corner with eyes sunken in his head.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Santa is there, within us.<\/p>\n In whatever dress we choose\u2026..<\/p>\n He\u2019s there to all who trust him,<\/p>\n And his miracles are ours to lose.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The miracle for the man on the street?<\/p>\n Perhaps it\u00a0 came through us<\/p>\n Not in the money we gave him,<\/p>\n But in the look of love.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The miracle for the child in the hospital<\/p>\n Is not the visit by the clown;<\/p>\n No \u2013 it\u00a0 lay within her \u2013<\/p>\n The clown — a disguise for love.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The teenager too\u2026.he\u2019s not lost \u2013<\/p>\n His miracles lie in wait<\/p>\n Until one day, the sun breaks through<\/p>\n And the miracles\u00a0 grow through the gate.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Miracles do exist.<\/p>\n They are there for each of us.<\/p>\n Perhaps not in the form we want them.<\/p>\n Perhaps not in the disguise we wish.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n They form themselves from a spirit of love,<\/p>\n And find their way in our lives<\/p>\n Miracles are there for the taking<\/p>\n If we but choose to believe.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Believe, this Christmas.\u00a0 Believe in the magic for our world, for all of us, but especially for yourself.\u00a0 It lies in wait within you.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Moreover, remember that you may be the candle that\u2019s meant to light another\u2026..you may be the disguise for someone else\u2019s miracle.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Believe in the magic for yourself;\u00a0 believe in it for all of us.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I believe.<\/p>\n Christmas, 2002<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Do you believe in Santa Claus? I do. Miracles are in the air every day. The old man on the street corner His face beaten and weathered. Ancient eyes sink in his head And beg desperately for life. His staff is a shopping cart Carefully parked at his side, Filled with a blanket […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":184,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-creative-writing"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jeannepengelly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jeannepengelly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jeannepengelly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeannepengelly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeannepengelly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeannepengelly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeannepengelly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jeannepengelly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeannepengelly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jeannepengelly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}