What Would Jesus Buy is now on DVD.

(Get it here)

McCain says "it’s tough, it’s tough in some respects" to be proud of America

Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat, this man redefines the term "being confused."  He just nicely obliterated the right wing’s chances to smear Michelle Obama with that whole "she’s proud for the first time" stupidity.  Wasn’t that nice of him?  

More below.

Yesterday morning when everyone in my house was rushing to get breakfast on the table and presents sorted by the tree, I wrote this to remind my family why we were celebrating.  It seemed like we had gotten so caught up in the shopping, figuring out who would sit where at dinner, how to catch the early Mass, that no one was talking about Jesus or who he was or how he changed the world.

I went into my 27 year old sister's closet where I knew her anatomically correct baby doll from her childhood, "Patrick", was in a corner. I wrapped him in a pillowcase for a swaddling cloth, and put him in the nicest chair in the living room.

When everyone had gathered, they were laughing and reminiscing about how much we loved Patrick as a kid (or at least how fascinating the anatomicaly correct babydoll was). My sister even picked him up and cuddled him again.  I reminded everyone that today was about another baby and how we might feel if we met him. Then I read:

And when the time was near that she should be delivered, Joseph took Mary unto the hospital saying, "She is going to have a baby, and she needeth a doctor's care."

And the hospital administrator spake unto him saying, "Havest thou Blue Cross/Blue Shield?"

And Joseph answered him thus saying, "There is not time, for her labor is intense, and only two minutes separate her contractions one from another."

Quiet day. More often now the relative quietness of Christmas is noted, as it's the sole remaining 24 hours on the calendar with that quality. A remarkably "Silent Night" outside that carries well into the day. Probably due less to the message & meaning of Christmas than to the seasonal hysteria spending itself like a wave crashing on the shore. At some point, the presents must be given & the appetitites satiated. The madness is the antithesis of The Nativity. Too much of everything. Even too much religion.

and Happy Holidays.

May your days (and nights) be filled with 'nog, friendship and songs in one's heart.

Dean Martin Singing "Christmas Blues"

Frank Sinatra crooning "Let it Snow"

Eartha Kitt purring "Santa Baby"

cross-posted from Daily Kos

I no longer consider myself a Christian, although I did spend almost two decades in the Episcopal Church and the Orthodox Church of America.  My wife is still devoutly Christian.  And there is much I respect about Christianity.  Most of my fellow member of the Religious Society of Friends consider themselves Christian, and their pacifism derives specifically from their understanding of what it means to be a Christian.  

When I glanced this morning at the editorial pages of The Boston Globe, I encountered a column by H. D. S. Greenway entitled Hope in times of war which I commend to you.  This diary is the result of reading his column, and of my further reflection upon it.  Since I am not wealthy, it is all I can bring to the manger, or to collection of offerings under the communal tree.

...so what have you done?

From tonight's Christmas Eve service. PD

You all have done such a fantastic job of listening to the scriptures and preaching to one another through your singing that I am tempted to skip this meditation and let everyone get on with their Christmas. I know a couple of kids who wouldn't mind losing a few minutes of this service at all.

But I am a preacher. That's who I am, that's what I do. So you are going to have to put with me.

I promise to be brief. I am, however, going to throw a couple of big words at you. But don't worry; I'll explain what they mean, and the ideas behind them are really very simple.

The playwright Tony Kushner recently said, "It is an ethical obligation to look for hope; it is an ethical obligation not to despair." Which means simply that looking for hope and avoiding despair are the right thing to do. To lose hope or to despair are the wrong thing to do. Actually, what he says is that we are obliged to look for hope, not even to find it.

That, I think, puts a new spin on the Christmas story. Jesus is our hope, and we are right to recognize as much. But how many of us actively search for hope? How many work against despair in their lives or the lives of others?

For Christians, hope is more than an ethical obligation. It is a theological imperative. If we want to know God, to know what God is like, if we want to see and touch and experience God, then we must know hope. We cannot understand Jesus Christ apart from the confident expectation that God will save his people. We know, moreover, that God is with us. The child of Bethlehem is our guard against despair. We are required to look there for our hope.

And last, hope is an ontological imperative. In other words, it is a condition of our very existence. We are, in a sense, because God has called us into being around the fragility and tentativeness of a newborn child. We exist in the framework of God's risky action in sending his Son to be our light and our redemption. We find the fullness of our being in God's ongoing work to bring his initiative to fruition. To hope is to live, to despair is to negate our lives.

And here you thought you were going to get, "Merry Christmas, everyone, enjoy your eggnog and your presents!"

You can. But first, let me say this. We are often bound by tradition at this time of year. We want the comforts of familiar routines, to do the things we used to do as kids. Christmas, as we celebrate it today, is a very nostalgic time.

But underneath all the gold and glitter, beneath all the lights and tinsel and wrapping and bows, there is a quiet invitation, not flashy at all, to live into God's future, to participate in the re-making of the world so that all may be reconciled, all may be made whole, all may be redeemed and set at peace, in the fullness of God's presence with us.

Go forth tonight, look for hope and do not despair. It is your duty, and according to the God who sent his only begotten Son, born of Mary, it should be also your greatest joy. Amen.

In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus
that the whole world should be enrolled.
This was the first enrollment,
when Quirinius was governor of Syria.
So all went to be enrolled, each to his own town.
And Joseph too went up from Galilee from the town of Nazareth
to Judea, to the city of David that is called Bethlehem,
because he was of the house and family of David,
to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.
While they were there,
the time came for her to have her child,
and she gave birth to her firstborn son.
She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger,
because there was no room for them in the inn.
Luke 2: 1-7  

We have arrived.

Nine nights of walking with peregrinos (pilgrims) in our midst has brought us to this night. This is the night where Peace became incarnate. A homeless couple wandering through Bethlehem in search of a place for the woman to birth a child ends with them settling into the only place where they were allowed to enter. A barn - a manger. The young woman births the child. The child grows to be a man, and becomes a pilgrim himself, walking through the world with a message of peace.

Tonight's Posada will be a short walk, then - but a walk with perhaps the most difficult stranger we'll encounter to whom we must open our doors, our hearts, and our lives.

Ourselves.

Train a child in the way he should go; even when he is old, he will not swerve from it.
(Proverbs 22:6)

Tonight's Posada is a little late. I was out with my best friend/sister of different parents today, sans kidlets, so we could do some Christmas shopping. To the extent that I do much of anything that's culturally typical around this holiday, it's because of the kids. I don't want Kid Pax to pick up much of my ambivalence (or worse) around this holiday. His very existence is countercultural enough; there's reasons enough to at least have him have some basic touchpoints around some of these holidays that are positive - if still somewhat different - that I make the effort.

As we were out today, surrounded by things "Christmasy" I wondered - what has "Christmas" become, from a kid's perspective? What does it even mean to be a child in this culture today?

So tonight's (belated) Posada is about kids - the ones in our midst, and maybe even the parts of us that are still children, still childlike. Can we still find that mystery with the children who are at our door?

Then he said to all, "If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.
(Luke 9:23-24)

When we first meet someone, we really have no way of knowing whether they'll be in our lives for the time it takes to have a brief conversation, or whether they might become a significant part of our life's journey. Even more unexpected are those people with whom our journeys intersect but fleetingly, but through whom our lives are forever changed.

Today would've been the 32nd birthday of one such person in my life. We were really only in touch on our birthdays, and once or twice a year with a random question or two, but always had a blast slinging email back and forth for a day or so each time. Friends who've known me far better and for many more years simply never had his knack for finding THE exact tacky, crass, offensive and hilarious egreeting card that was perfect, arriving each July 9 from 2003-2006 with precision. I would try to return the favor each December, certainly never honing in quite as well, but always sending something, and we'd exchange a few messages over the next few days and Christmas, and then drop the connection 'til the next July.

He died this year, killed by his alcoholism.