Joseph and the shepherds

Just this week I found again my copy Godfrey Rust's Breaking Chains. I heard him give some of his poetry at a memorable evening years ago.  So much imagination to provoke minds and hearts!  Let me quote the last part of his poem on Joseph and the Shcpherds. (This is not the formatting Godfrey Rust gave the poem and that I tried to follow....but my blog post had other ideas.  Still, you can work through its theme!)

No room at the inn. No room anywhere,                                                                                                They gave him the only place they could spare                                                                                            and the promised Messiah was born that night                                                                                          on the floor of a stable without any light                                                                                              where they cut the cord and cleaned up the mess                                                                                          and wrapped him in somebody's workaday dress                                                                                    and while Mary slept there exhausted and cold,                                                                                  Joseph sat by feeling  helpless and old.                                                                                                  This wasn't the way he had thought it would be                                                                                        when the angel had told him that destiny                                                                                              chose them to look after the Holy One.                                                                                                    No, this was a farce. What God had done                                                                                                    was to trust the care of the Saviour instead                                                                                                  to a man who could not even find him a bed.                                                                                              If only he'd planned it more carefully then.                                                                                                  If he only could go back and do it again.                                                                                                  He turned round in his mind the way he had blundered -                                                                        then he looked at the infant and suddenly wondered                                                                                  If it was all a lie, if he was a fool                                                                                                              and the object of everyone's ridicule,                                                                                                          if the dreams of the angels were tricks and not                                                                                      what they promised to be, and his anger grew hot                                                                                when the shepherds burst in all breathless and wild                                                                                and stopped in their tracks when they saw the child.                                                                              They shifted their gaze from the baby's bed                                                                                              and their eyes met his, and he nodded his head,                                                                                standing awkwardly, not knowing quite what to do                                                                                      now they all knew the for certain the story was true.                                                                            They stayed there for minutes. It might have been years,                                                                        Not one of them spoke. Their hopes and their fears                                                                                were gathered around this helpless God                                                                                                      as their minds tried to grasp what it meant. Where he stood                                                                    Joseph was silent as finally                                                                                                                        he saw this was how it was planned to be,                                                                                                that the smell and the dark and the dirt and the pain                                                                                      were not Joseph's mistake but God's choice. As the rain                                                                          ran down on Bethlehem Joseph knew                                                                                                      that men would be saved despite all they might do.                                                                                  He could not control it. He did not understand.                                                                                        He felt like a baby himself in God's hand.                                                                                                He thought of his anger and flushed now with shame                                                                              He remembered the angel had said that his name                                                                                would be Jesus, God saves. He glanced up and saw                                                                                that the shepherds had gone. Day had Dawned.                                                                                    From the floor Mary looked at him, quizzical, on her straw bed.                                                            The tiny God-child cried out to be fed.                                                                                                Joseph moved to the business of the new day,                                                                                        gave the child to its mother, the donkey some hay.