So I was all set to give Pastordan some input into a 2008 Strategic Plan for the Street Prophets Empire. We need to start selling shot glasses with our logo on them, and maybe even go out into bars to recruit people. And what's with the tired old "Faith and Politics" line? That was soooo 2006.  How about "A Place for the Screwed and the Screwed Up"? Doesn't that just about describe us here?

But nooooooo... Next Level Church, a little place in Charlotte, NC that reminds me a lot (in good ways) of what I've seen and heard about JCH's church home out here, has taken that strategy and run with it. Instead of sitting in the sanctuary waiting for people to show up, they're taking their message to local bars. Including logo'd shot glasses, yes.

Pastor Robbie McLaughlin notes, "The people that will have the biggest problem with what we are doing [are those] who already have a home in heaven or go to church somewhere."

Hey, I've got my spot staked out in the mosh pit of the Pearly Gates, but I still think it's a pretty cool thing, all in all. Why?

Happy Friday, everyone. PoliSigh is finishing up her grading and taking care of some friends and other offline needs, so I'm covering for her today. We're holding our beloved Prayer Closet leader and her intentions in our thoughts and prayers today.

Please join our community in prayer. Just leave your prayer requests and pray for the requests of the community. I welcome all people to join in as the power of prayer/good energy is undeniable.

If you have any favorite prayers or passages or quotes or meditations, please send them to PoliSigh to share, meeshka1@msn dot com

Please do not argue about the requests of others--you may do that elsewhere!!! If you wish to offer comments of support--please do so! If you choose to rate prayer requests, click a cookie as an AMEN! If you disagree with a request, please just refrain from rating--this is a place where people need to feel they can reveal and unburden their hearts without being criticized. Should any trolls come our way, just surround them with prayer.

Prayer requests remain on the list based upon PoliSigh's judgment. :)  Removing requests is her decision. (Although I updated a few based on updates posted in the past couple of threads, and removed a couple ones related to the holidays... - paxpdx) I have no hard and fast rules--I simply act when the list seems to get too long or it seems the request no longer applies.  If I take one off which you would like to remain, please simply request it again.  If the request can be removed earlier, please let me know.  I'm sure we all would appreciate an update.  Thank you!

There's more:

Amidst balls dropping and all the year-end "Year in Review" stories, a little piece of news tomorrow may be missed. Tomorrow morning, a wall will be erected along a portion of the US-Mexico border.

On January 1, Mexican farmers and social groups will make a human wall on the border checkpoint in Ciudad Juarez to protest against the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

"That human wall will be built on the Cordoba-Americas International Bridge in Ciudad Juarez, state of Chihuahua, to criticize the NAFTA stage on agricultural sectors, national producers and consumers," the Farmers' Democratic Front said.

The campaign's simple and rhyming name starkly lays out the Mexican farmers' views of what's to come: "SIN MAÍZ NO HAY PAÍS" - Without Corn, there is no Country. Over 300 organizations are joining together to urge a suspension of the final implementation of NAFTA. As of tomorrow, all tariffs on US imports of milk, beans, corn, sugar, and other foods will end.

'Afternoon, all!

Serving coffee today from a small grey cubicle out at a large corporate building in a far-flung suburb of Portland - known affectionately as "the Borg". On a normal day, there's several thousand people milling about out here, but today's pretty quiet. Kid Pax is out here with me as well, since school's out and the trip's a short one.

He likes coming out here because it's a pretty fascinating place, and there's all sorts of geeky stuff around. I like coming out here - well, because they toss money in my credit union account every couple of weeks, and that's a Good Thing.

We both like coming out here for the cafeteria. It is extremely good as far as corporate food goes - lots of organic, free-range, and naturally-harvested local stuff. He likes the pizza.

I'm a big fan of the coffee - Nossa Familia, a locally-owned, Fair Trade, sustainably-grown and harvested cuppa joe. I'll grab my cup of that, you get your own beverage, and jump on in!

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.

Then she gave birth to a son, and he named him Gershom, for he said, "I have been a sojourner in a foreign land."

Exodus 2:22

Tonight is the sixth night of Las Posadas, our journey with the pilgrims in our midst. Joseph and Mary went door to door in search of shelter so Mary might comfortably birth the baby who would shake the world to its core with his message of peace and justice. During this novena, we are walking down Prophecy Street as our neighbors in Mexico and in Mexican communities here in los Estados Unidos are walking down streets where they live. We reenact the story of doors closed against peace, and examine the doors and other barriers in our lives - those we face, and those we erect ourselves against others.

I heard the loud voices before I spotted their source. "Where is the banno?" Then, even louder, "NO! Where is the banno?!? Don't you understand BANNO?"

Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples, saying, "The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses. Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever that they tell you, but do not follow their example. For they preach, but they do not practice.
(Matthew 23:1-3)

As we prepare tonight's celebration of Las Posadas, the knocking at our door may be a little more insistent, a little more frustrated than usual. We have a different group of peregrinos coming to us for assistance tonight. In fact, they're not just here for assistance and for a warm place to stay. They're bringing a grievance, and as we approach the culmination of this holiday season, we'd best sit down and listen.

And I tell you, ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

(Luke 11:9-10)

Tonight's Posada is a little bit different. At its surface, I'm addressing it to my Brothers and Sisters who find yourselves parked on the cold porch, outside big, foreboding doors that read "Objectively Disordered May Not Enter." Even today I had a conversation with someone who asked how I manage to stay within the Catholic Church, given the signs and gates and barriers and ropes and sturdy steel doors that official Church teachings erect in order to keep People Like Us(TM) from being where our faith and our God calls us to be.

It's an interesting question. Tonight we'll explore it in the context of that specific question - LGBT people within faith communities that deny our right to be present - but as you await the evening's piñata, ask yourself where there are parallels in your own life, even if you're not gay, not Catholic. Where are you told that, because of who you are, you cannot be present? Are you a migrant worker? Are you a Democrat at a Bush family gathering? Are you a young pregnant woman, traveling with a man who is not the baby's father, turned away at inn after inn after inn?

I'll give you the punchline now (for y'all who want to get in line to strike at your bitterness at the piñata first): The Empire Has No Doors.

So c'mon in. Bienvenidos a nuestra casa.

Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked them, but Jesus said, "Let the children come to me, and do not prevent them; for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."

(Matthew 19:13-14)

Dear Flight Attendants from my flight to Mexico a few weeks ago,

During and after the flight, you thanked me for helping out with a part of your job that you really hadn't had the time to do all that well, what with all the safety instructions and meals and drinks to serve to us all. As I left the plane to yet another round of your thanks, I shook my head and said "No, thank you. I learned a lot on this flight."

I looked back to the back row of the plane, smiled at the one passenger remaining there, and waved, tears in my eyes, but far enough away that she couldn't see them. She waved furiously back, a white-gloved hand going back and forth, reaching forward, saying goodbye.

And then I stepped through the door of the airplane and entered Mexico.

This evening's installment of Las Posadas brings people to our doors that at first glance we may want to send away altogether. "Mental illness" just sounds frightening, conjuring up images of Jack Nicholson and his fellow inmates from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Within our own families, our own communities, behind our own doors, it's too often unspeakable.

You'd think we'd be past that. After all, mental illness certainly isn't a new phenomenon.

When [Jesus] got out of the boat, at once a man from the tombs who had an unclean spirit met him. The man had been dwelling among the tombs, and no one could restrain him any longer, even with a chain. In fact, he had frequently been bound with shackles and chains, but the chains had been pulled apart by him and the shackles smashed, and no one was strong enough to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and on the hillsides he was always crying out and bruising himself with stones. ... He asked him, "What is your name?" He replied, "Legion is my name. There are many of us."

(Mark 5:2-5, 9)