Even the animals, at a safe distance, seem attentive. That s the picture. But that s not the reality. Mary, perhaps only fifteen years old, is having her first baby, among the filth and stench of a cave that serves as a stable. It is damp and cold, the stable is full of the filth and stench of sweaty animals.
Flies buzz around.
There is animal manure on the floor. It is in the midst of this struggle, when Mary is certainly wondering about this promise she believes was given to her, that we hear the angels singing overhead. It is the shepherds about the equivalent of the modern skid-row bum who hear them, and come to worship, breaking in on this couple s small moment of intimacy. This story, then, is a melody of two lines. One cannot be understood without the other.