December 20, 2025
“Star of the Sea” - By Sarah Fuller
I Wonder As I Wander
By Cecilia Blackwell
"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars,” Oscar Wilde penned almost two hundred years ago. These words come to my mind, perhaps partly due to my favorite Christmas carol, “I Wonder as I Wander,” an Appalachian song with a wistful tune and vivid lyrics:
I wonder as I wander out under the sky,
How Jesus the Savior did come for to die.
For poor on’ry people like you and like I...
I wonder as I wander out under the sky.
There are many reasons I love this carol so much, but the reason that stands out most poignantly to me is that the lyrics, while clearly pertaining to Christmas, do not shy away from acknowledging Christ’s passion and death. The Christmas story—the infancy narratives and all that we have made of them—cannot be separated from what happens later, and what happens later lends a sort of gravitas to what could otherwise be construed as a rather saccharine story. Jesus came as a sweet baby, but why? What is the reason for His coming? There is an unmistakable cost to His coming, the price of which is His life. He came to die so we might live. He came to enter the mess we find ourselves in and bring light, healing, and hope to every one of us. This beautiful reality is the essence of the good news that every disciple of Christ is called to share.
We live in a profoundly messy world, to say the least. Oscar Wilde’s descriptive use of the word “gutter” is fitting. But he was right: some of us are looking at the stars, and I’d wager that those of us looking at the stars are truly seeking to find the Christ, the Messiah, the Prince of Peace, whether we know it or not. Though we may be wandering in the wilderness, our exile here on earth, God hasn’t abandoned us. He gave the Wise Men one star, that Star in the East; but He gives us stars upon stars, a metaphorical night sky filled so innumerably we cannot count them all. Some of these are the words of God found in Sacred Scripture, the Church and the treasure trove of faith She contains, and the perpetually vivid lives of the saints. Others are found in the beauty of creation: woodland streams and mountain ranges, fresh flowers and abundant harvests, waters teeming with life and skies filled with constellations. And still others are seen in all creative forms and acts humanity partakes in that point in some way to what is good, and true, and beautiful.
God has given a definitive mission to creatives, an unmistakably crucial role in bringing the good news to all the earth. Just as the star in the East guided the Wise Men to the Christ Child, we are called to engage with the arts in a manner that guides others to know Christ a little better, whether knowingly or not. We need not worry about doing so perfectly. We live in a fallen world, and although Christ has come to save us and given us hope for life eternal, we still must bear the effects of possessing a fallen nature while we remain on earth. While this could be discouraging, I find it to be tremendously relieving. I do not need to worry about reflecting God perfectly through my artistic endeavors. All that needs to be done is to put forth my best effort in the moment, and entrust the rest to God. As a recovering perfectionist, this takes significant pressure off my efforts to create. For just as it was ultimately God Who caught the attention of the Wise Men through the star in the East, it ultimately is He Who draws people to Himself through our artistic endeavours.
For when we follow the stars God shows to us and truly seek what they lead to, we discover the greatest gift God has ever given us: the Eucharist. The sign is no longer a symbol. The guiding Light is also our Savior. The babe in the manger has become the Bread of Life. And for all creatives, we get to spend tangible time physically present with God, the source of all good artistic inspiration.
Though we may all be in the gutter, some of us do see the stars. And if we look closely, we might find they shed light on an unexpected Person in the gutter with us: the Christ Child, our Emmanuel, the God-with-us.
When Mary birthed Jesus ’twas in a cow’s stall,
With wise men and farmers and shepherds and all.
But high from God’s heaven a star’s light did fall,
And the promise of ages it then did recall.
Cecilia Blackwell is a musician, writer, and co-founder of The Hildegard Collective, a nonprofit supporting Catholic musicians. She lives in southwest Florida with her husband and daughter.
Sarah Fuller lives in Ventura, California. She is a linocut printmaker, illustrator and fabric artist. You can learn more about her art at sarahfullerart.com