Huh?

Our Church's Christmas Pagent is next weekend and we picked up the Llama-ettes' costumes yesterday. As was the case last year, my six year old and four year old will participate as, respectively, a shepherd and an angel. Also, my two year old is joining in for the first time this year. We signed her up as one of the barnyard animals. For reasons which I have yet to fathom, she apparently is going as a lion.

It just so happens that yesterday's Adult Forum was an excellent history of the development of the Nativity story in Western Art. Despite numerous changes in the story over the millenia - the Brigettine birth, the change in Joseph's age and role, the handling of Jesus by midwives, and so on, I'm pretty sure that the ox, the ass and sheep are pretty much the only animals traditionally present in the manger. I should think that if a lion actually did turn up, either the Gospels or the Apocrypha would have mentioned it.

As it happens, my daughter loves lions. In fact, being the kind of kid that she is, I have every expectation that the girl is going to roar lustily during the entire production and may even go so far as to fall upon one of her fellow animals - or possibly even the Infant Jesus - in messy, carnivorous bliss. As Woody Allen once said, the lion and the lamb may lie down together, but the lamb won't get much sleep.