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Christmas Blossoms By Charles Franklin Parker

The desert is a lovely place, and in the winter days there is a captivating exhilaration in the tang of desert air which becomes nurturingly warm as the sun ascends above the purple mountain rim. There is a continuous life on the desert, and the greenery is an ever welcome sight to those emerging from the snow-bound winters of other climes.

In the spring the desert becomes beautiful with multitudinous blossoms, and so since Christmas is a date of man's making and might actually have occurred on any day of the three-hundred and sixty-five of the year; and further, since the Judean Hills and the entire country round about Bethlehem and Nazareth are not unlike Arizona, it is not hard to believe that Jesus, the Child of Bethlehem was to know the beauty of the desert flora-some of which we are told are common only to parts of Arizona and Palestine. Thus Christmas blossoms of the desert are more true to ancient setting than the traditional poinsettias and evergreens.

Beauty in the desert is produced in spite of and in adjustment to difficult growing conditions. Many trees, shrubs and flowers can not endure the desert conditions and yet many thrive on the very demanding sacrifice of the desert. In part, the beauty and magnificence of the life of Jesus were so pronounced because of the spiritual and social aridity of those days in far off Palestine.

For nineteen centuries the hardy plant sprung from His life has flowered though not too profusely—in a world of spiritual desert. But like the desert plants it has flowered in triumph over conditions of adversity, and where it has blossomed, the place has been one of beauty and loveliness. With the power of adaptability commensurate to the sturdy desert cacti, the Rose of Sharon has grown in the waste places and made them show forth the glory of the creative power of God.

The world today is not an altogether beautiful place. There is much destructive force tearing away the productive