Al Staggs, a Vietnam era Army veteran, now living with his family in San Antonio, is a minister and lecturer widely known for the performance of his original one-person stage play on the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The last issue of Christian Ethics Today carried his poem "Legitimation."

We pray for a new Christmas
that will dispel doubts that
the One who was born to us
is with us still.
We pray that this new Christmas
will redeem Christmases past,
those lived under clouds of war
at Saigon, Panmungon, at Sicily,
at the Argonne, and countless other
fields of strife where the
blood-stained soil still cries
out for 'Peace on earth, peace on earth,
Let there be peace on earth.'

We pray that this new Christmas
will bring new hope to children of fear,
alone in the night, ragged and weary,
hungry and cold.
May we help them to see the star in the East
and the Child in the manger, in the stable,
a little child like them.
May we help the infirmed all the world 'round
To have a bright new Christmas,
touched by grace with the gift of hope.

We pray for a new Christmas
and yet an old one too.
Old as the night when the Christ Child
came to us.
Visit us Lord Jesus and lighten the
darkened corners of our hearts
this new, new Christmas.