Well, it's Sunday morning with Christmas nigh upon us. I'l be home cleaning the house, caring for my fish, hopefully connecting with my family better than I did this past week. But I can't resist the nudge to get behind a would be pulpit for a minute and speak to those who will be attending, with a couple fingers pointing back at me:

Joy to the World, the Lord has Come.
Fear not I bring you good tidings of great joy.
Peace on Earth, Good Will toward All

How in the hell, good pew sitting people, how in the hell, can we sit in a pew this morning if these things are true -really true, not just nice comforts?

Go out, go home, go to a friend, go to a stranger, and help them feel these for one passing moment. In the words of Saint Jean-Luc Picard: "Make it so." If you have the time, wealth, peace of mind, energy that this message suggests, then sit there with those who do not.

And if you are here desperate, barely hanging on to some semblance of sanity. Here looking for some small shred to hold on to. Know this: Holy Days are bullshit. Name the date and it doesn't matter, because you are the holy ones, the blessed ones, and there is never a moment that the possibility of love is not near you, surrounding you, begging the world to agree with it and celebrate you. The world ought to bow down and reverence you, the light that is in you almost gone out. They ought to build shelters to protect your flame, bring oxygen and kindling to grow it brighter, until that which is in you drives out any darkness, and Peace on Earth becomes not a comfort to the comfortable but an experience of the outcast.

I say not to the Christ child, but to you: sleep in heavenly peace.