Cleveland O McLeish

Celebrating Jesus Cleveland O McLeish

Celebrating Jesus is a collection of short stories for Christmas that begin as random and unrelated events that culminate at the Worship Center Church on Christmas Day. This Church is the only thing these characters seem to have in common.



We begin with a biblical setting with Joseph waking out of his sleep realizing that he has just received another visit from an angel telling him to flee to Egypt with his wife and young son. We then journey into a more contemporary setting with Samantha, a young teenage girl who finds herself being left at home alone. She is scared and confused and try to make sense of life through immorality, but she has a Christian friend who will change her life.



We then meet Jason; an incarcerated young man who is sitting in jail on a weapons charge. He struggles with the absence of his father and a mother whose love he may never understand.



Amid all this, a few executives meet to discuss making some of their workers redundant just before Christmas. The Human Resource Manager struggles with her responsibility to bear the bad news to the unfortunate ones who have been randomly selected from a list.



How do we celebrate Jesus when our lives are falling apart, and we can find no peace? What role or significance does His birth have in changing the course of our lives? At the end of the day, we realize that we have no control over circumstances and situations, but we have the power to choose how we respond to it.