Advent with Lewis

This year I am teaching a C.S. Lewis course to high school students, so in honor of an author whose work has been life-changing for me, I’m sharing a Lewis nativity poem this December. Lewis wrote this as a poetic response to a French carol entitled “The Friendly Beasts” that praises the animals for their human-like worship of Christ. Instead, Lewis finds himself more akin to the nature of the beasts themselves, and wishes for their same dull patience. They were simply looking for hay and stumbled upon the Christ-child, a relevant picture of their desperate need for grace (and his).

The artwork above is also entitled “Nativity” (Fabriano 1423), and I found myself chuckling that the ass is at the focal point of the painting . . .

"The Nativity" by C.S. Lewis

Among the oxen (like an ox I’m slow)
I see a glory in the stable grow
Which, with the ox’s dullness might at length
Give me an ox’s strength.

Among the asses (stubborn I as they)
I see my Savior where I looked for hay;
So may my beast like folly learn at least
The patience of a beast.

Among the sheep (I like a sheep have strayed)
I watch the manger where my Lord is laid;
Oh that my baaing nature would win thence
Some woolly innocence!