God's Motley Crew

 

This yard just moved way up the list of my favorites. Though a few days ago I wrote about coming upon a little giraffe, I never expected to find a large one in a Christmas display. And if that wasn’t enough, it is not only a giraffe joining Santa on this lawn, but a monkey, an elephant and a hippopotamus as well. No wonder Santa is so happy. He is surrounded by his very own zoo!

When I was a boy, my favorite animal was the hippopotamus. I’m not sure how the hippopotamus came to be so intriguing to me, but it was just that for years. I’m sure it had something to do with a poem by Ogden Nash I loved:

Behold the hippopotamus!

We laugh at how he looks to us,

And yet in moments dank and grim,

I wonder how we look to him.

Peace, peace, thou hippopotamus!

We really look all right to us,

As you no doubt delight the eye

Of other hippopotami.

To each their own. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This fun little rhyme can mean several things, like a hippopotamus in a Christmas display. I like to think it is simply a celebration of joy, a moment of fun, a flight of fancy. When I look at this picture, I hear the beginning of a joke, something like “a hippo, a monkey, an elephant and a giraffe all walk into a bar”.

But it also leads me to think of the joy God feels in the wild, wonderful diversity of God’s creation. All creation is good, the story tells us, and all of us creatures belong to each other in some marvelous way because we all belong to God. Even the story of this season reflects this truth. Kings and shepherds. Angels and humans. People from different cultures. Sheep and whatever else might have been in that stable long ago. And in the middle of it all, novice parents and a newborn baby. None of these seem to go together, yet it is in this scene that all things come together in a way that changes everything. We are all included in this great love story, even though we resemble the motley crew in this yard display. Maybe we are all included BECAUSE we resemble it.

Peace.