Merry Christmas!

Many thoughts about returning to the church of my childhood for Christmas again.
This year:
- I enjoyed the singing and the fellowship, but didn't have an overwhelmingly emotional experience.  I do love those lines from Isaiah, though, where they will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea.  That coupled with Brueggemann on Krista Tippett's show this morning has me thinking about prophecy and the poetry of the Bible.
- I thought much more about the "echoes" of my childhood, especially the embarrassing parts, that assault me at every turn in that building.  Will I ever be able to step into that place as myself now, without those echoes?  But then if it weren't for those, is this the place I would choose?  More on that later.
- I introduced my wife as my wife without a second thought.  Or with barely a second thought.  The "gay" part of gay and Christian doesn't seem to be bothering me so much.  In fact, the "christian" part might be bothering me more.
- When the preacher acknowledged how special it was to be in a room with many generations of families-- adult children home to visit their parents, new grandbabies (some of which we had just had dinner with, indeed, the babies of children I used to babysit for), etc.-- I felt the holiness of the moment too.

And felt a reason I am drawn more to the institutional church than to the religion (unlike... everyone else I know, the "spiritual but not religious" contingent this woman rails against): to be a part of this very community.  It is a holy place, isn't it?  and exactly how I, in my mistaken belief in my own self-sufficiency (and in the superiority of self-sufficiency), most need to be challenged.  What must it be like to be so deeply involved in the lives of others, in their defeats and tragedies, losses and most human moments, not only their awards ceremonies, weddings, celebrations...?  Once I felt called to do that; then I couldn't even make it through a full year as a hospice volunteer.

Poor S. was the only pastor of Church X in town on September 11, 2001.  He wasn't even 30 yet.  People came to the church that day, drained, scared, angry, bereft, and he, such a young man, muddled his way through pastoring to them, in the midst of what was surely his own fear and pain.  How did he do it?