I saw this load of Missouri hay on its way somewhere to feed someone's creatures. That led me to thinking about just which someone fed everyone and every creature that arrived to see Baby Jesus. I'm pretty sure that someone was Mary, being the only woman in the barn. And I wonder how she did it. The wisemen from afar brought valuable gifts. But being kings, they most likely expected others would take on the honor of feeding them. Shepherds may have been hunters and foragers, but I don't think they scurried to pack a lunch in the limited amount of time borrowed from their flocks. And there's the visiting animals to consider. They needed hay and fresh water. Perhaps the innkeeper made out like a bandit and did everything, for everyone, for a tidy profit. But I like to think that somehow Mary handled it. She kept busy making rock soup for a crowd of strangers and forking hay for their livestock. In between, she held her baby tight. Having seen him honored by kings and adored by shepherds and angels both, she must have worried if somehow God made a mistake in picking an inexperienced teenager to be his mother. Then a new visitor would enter the stable, or a donkey would slurp the bottom of a water trough, and Mary would lay her sleeping Jesus in the manger, to go and do for others.
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