I heard this song for the first time on a Sunday less than 10 years ago, “The Rose of Bethlehem.”

“There’s a fragrance much like hope

That it sends upon the wind

Reaching out to every soul

From a lowly manger’s crib…”

Hope. Through the miracle of the manger. Hope that a world insane will be set right, that evil fails and right prevails, that all wounds will be healed and hearts restored, that the glory and joy and feast of eternity will be so overwhelming that it will, as I gratefully heard a pastor say long ago, make all these horrific days and times and trials and heartbreaks seem like no more than one bad night in a cheap hotel.

But … there remains today. And tomorrow. More CNN Days to come. Such is the forecast in a fallen world. What can I do?

Maybe keep suiting up? Run the next play? If a Christmastime manger in a tiny town in the dead of winter is significant, then you must be. I must be.

“I am only one, but I am one,” said Edward Everett Hale, the flawed but prolific clergyman of the 19^th century. “I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do. What I can do, I should do. And what I should do, by the grace of God, I will do.”

It sounds corny, but Charles Dickens and his one-man chain gang, Jacob Marley, had a point.

“Mankind was my business,” Marley says from the grave to Scrooge. “The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance and benevolence were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business.”

Mankind is our business. In the manger is our help and our hope that baby steps, even ours, add up.

-30-