Phil, I think it was a cave, too.  After all, there is the Christmas song,
In A Cave.

At 05:18 PM 12/13/03 -0700, you wrote:
>I have told this before so please forgive me.  I was listening to a guy
>preach, he passed away many years ago, and he was a cowboy.  He owned a
>ranch for the deaf in the state of Tennessee.  He would bring in 1500 deaf
>people at different times to the ranch for free during the summer.  Many
>times, churches with deaf ministries, would bus their deaf to his ranch.
>This man could hear fine and so could everyone in his family so I never
>heard how it came about he started this ranch.  Anyhow, his name was Bill
>Rice.  One time he got to go to the Bible lands.  In Bethlehem, he was
>walking around by himself when he stopped at a place that looked like it
>could have been a place where Mary and Joseph tried to stop but were turned
>away to the stable.  A man who could speak English asked Bill what he was
>doing and he said he was trying to find something that looked like a stable
>where Jesus would have been born.  The man told him he would show him.  They
>walked for awhile until they came to a cave.  Bill asked what this was for
>and the man said, This is where animals are kept.  They were not kept in
>barns as you have in the United States but hundreds of these caves are all
>over our country and are used for keeping animals.  In my opinion, he said,
>your Jesus would have much more come to being born in a cave like this than
>a nice warm barn or stable.  Bill asked if he could go inside.  The man
>said, yes, but that Bill wouldn't like it.  Bill had on his cowboy boots on
>and stepped into the dark cave.  The pungent smell of animals and everything
>they produce nearly knocked him out and this was a man used to barns and
>animal smells.  He tried walking around but his boots literally sank in the
>manure which came to the tops of his boots.  That's how deep it was.  There
>was a manger, of course, but Bill said it had the greatest impact on him he
>had ever known before concerning the birth of our Lord.  I know the Bible
>says Jesus was born in a stable but I also imagine these caves were called
>stables, too.  Every time I think of Christmas and the manger, I think of my
>uncle's farm in Kansas.  We used to love playing in the barn even in the
>winter.  One Christmas, we drove from Iowa to Kansas and while at my
>cousin's house, we put on coats and gloves, because it was super cold, and
>went to the barn.  We climbed around and played tag in the hay loft and
>throughout the large barn.  They raised cows but none were in the barn this
>afternoon so we got to run all over playing tag.  They had a huge manger
>that we climbed in and out of and rolled around in the hay trying to keep
>away from whoever it was trying to tag us at the time.  You could get from
>one part of the barn to another by climbing through the manger because it
>was built into the wall so the cows couldn't come into the other side of the
>barn.  As I said, I remember this manger every year because I vaguely
>remember rolling through the hay in the manger as we played and it crossing
>my mind that perhaps Jesus was born in something just like what I was
>playing in.  The story of Bill Rice going into that cave will never leave my
>mind.  Regardless, Jesus was born in a manger.  The Creator of the universe
>was born in a manger and given birth by a virgin.  Try and top that.  Oh,
>sure, you can dismiss it by saying, it never happened; Jesus was just a man,
>or something like, the Bible isn't true.  That's fine.  You can believe
>whatever you like.  Jesus still loves you just as much as He does me, too,
>even if you don't believe in him.  Of course, if you keep this unbelief up,
>you won't wind up in the same place I do at the end of God's time table but
>you are free to believe whatever you want.  Oh, that makes you mad?  You
>don't like having your arm twisted and forced to believe?  No one is forcing
>you to do a thing.  If there is no hell and no Heaven, you have nothing to
>worry about.  If there is, take your complaint about God's plan to the
>Creator of the universe, the one born in a manger?  And see if you can get
>Him to change the rules in the middle, or now near the end, of the game,
>sort of speak.
>
>Phil.

John

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