Merry Christmas….

I never imagined I’d get to a time when people consider the phrase divisive, controversial, offensive. How strange.

For all the good it’s done through the centuries, (and it has) I also realize religion has been twisted. Weaponized. As someone whose life was transformed by faith in Jesus and who has been on the receiving end of religion’s misuse, I feel the need to reaffirm that the real Christmas story is about Hope.

It’s about redemption and transcendence. It’s about justice and love. It’s not a case for ignorance, elitism or retribution. It’s the Eternal reaching into our lives at the point of greatest need and offering help, mercy, and  forgiveness.

Have a Merry Christmas. May God draw you to himself and flood your life with courage and grace, inspiration and gratitude in 2019.

Let the Stable Still Astonish!

by Leslie Leyland Fields

Let the stable still astonish:
Straw-dirt floor, dull eyes,
Dusty flanks of donkeys, oxen;
Crumbling, crooked walls;
No bed to carry that pain,
And then, the child, rag-wrapped laid to cry
In a trough.
Who would have chosen this?
Who would have said:
“Yes, Let the God of Heaven and Earth be born in this place.”

Who but the same God
Who stands in the darker, fouler rooms of our hearts
And says,
“Yes, let the God of Heaven and Earth be born in THIS place.”