Over 100 people were in attendance in the dedication of this year’s nativity artwork at Claremont United Methodist Church.

Designed by artist John Zachary, and built by members of the church, the scene depicts a woman and a child at a bus stop, resembling the Madonna and Child, who are overshadowed by commercial messages.

A poem, below, were available in interpreting the artwork:

We don’t see.

Christmas lights catch our eye.

The tinsel and the glitter, the cookies and the presents.
Shopping sales and chocolates.

We don’t see.
The kids hungry in school
Every day

Infants nursed in bus stops and alleys.
Toddlers with no safe playgrounds.
Families with no home, no safety, no Christmas.

If Jesus was born today
To an unwed mother
A teenage unwed mom
A teenage unwed oppressed minority mom
Would we see?

Traveling through our town
On the Metro or the bus
Late at night
Would we see?

We are people of the inn:
Sleeping next door to the One from God
Born out back, down the alley,
In a cave that we never noticed
never cared to see.

We are people of the inn
Warm, with food enough for feasting,
water to drink, meds to take,
And presents under the tree.

We see the latest, the newest, the brightest
We see what we want, what we desire,

And infants and toddlers and children of the poor
are unnoticed, even held responsible.
But God sees. I hear their cries, says the Lord.