In the winter of 1914, as the French and British and Germans and Austrians and Hungarians and Russians were fighting along miles and miles of enemy lines, something froze the hatred and fear in their hearts for just as moment. Most know the story of how on Christmas Eve British soldiers started singing Silent Night while in their trenches and Germans started singing Stille Nacht while in theirs. The longing in their hearts for peace and connection, for family and friendship, was too great to be ignored as men from both sides crossed into No Mans Land to chat and share food and pictures of home. It was a ground root, unofficial ceasefire that swelled from their recognizing their fellows as human beings and not simply as “the other side.” That ceasefire was lit across the fighting world.
What many don’t know is that prior to Christmas arriving, female German activists sent letters to the International Woman Suffrage Alliance in the neutral U.S. asking that “women of the world should guard their children against the ‘hollow din’ of ‘cheap racial pride’.” Because British and German women were forbidden to communicate with each other, they had to go through a neutral mediator. The cry for peace was then published in their international magazine. In response, 101 British Suffragettes sent an Open Christmas Letter to the women of Germany and Austria, begging for an end to a modern war that only promised more horror if continued. The letters went back and forth for a while, posted in the magazine.
The peace movement split the Suffragist movement in Britain, with many afraid of appearing unpatriotic and weakening the impact of their movement in the government. What was truly weakened, however, was their peace initiative. Peace, sadly, would have to wait in order to ensure that the quest for women’s rights would not be seen as anti-British. All their hearts could hope for was a temporary truce.
And those soldiers who longed for a moment’s rest from the fighting? The generals on both sides, who never saw the human faces of their own men, much less those of the enemy, saw this as a dangerous movement and forbade any Christmas Truce to occur for the rest of the war. It did sporatically, but never like that first year.
What does it mean to be Poor in Spirit? Maybe it has something to do with encouraging all the trappings of “rights” and “ownership” and “belonging” to slide off me, stepping away from them, and standing before my Creator as unadorned, unprotected, and fully human. There is something almost sacred about denying my own personal “rights” in order to serve and lighten the load of my fellows. When my innate desire to belong is challenged by pursuing what is right, I am on the road to becoming poor in spirit. It is too easy for my conscience to get sidelined by the power-struggles of this world. I want to be on the winning side without reference to the needs of my fellows who might even be my enemies. It is too easy to lose my own humanity when I am resistant to seeing the humanity of those across No Mans Land. Is this not the antithesis of being poor in spirit?
When I come to God and to my fellows as one who is devoid of my own battle armor, I approach Poor in Spirit. When I remember that the God Who created me created the one standing before me or even the one running past me and knocking me over in the process, I approach Poor in Spirit. When my “rights” become far less important to me as I look into the face of my fellow’s need, I approach Poor in spirit.
In the words of the Manchester Suffragettes:
“The Christmas message sounds like mockery to a world at war, but those of us who wished and still wish for peace may surely offer a solemn greeting to such of you who feel as we do. Do not let us forget that our very anguish unites us, that we are passing together through the same experience of pain and grief.
Caught in the grip of terrible Circumstance, what can we do? Tossed on this turbulent sea of human conflict, we can but moor ourselves to those calm shores whereon stand, like rocks, the eternal verities- Love, Peace, Brotherhood.
We pray you to believe that come what may we hold to our faith in Peace and Goodwill between nations; while technically at enmity in obedience to our rulers, we owe allegiance to that higher law which bids us live at peace with all men.”
May God help us all to become fully human. Merry Christmas!
Hard to be blessed 
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