Last Sunday I told my congregation that since there was no such thing as demons, we could not allow ourselves to demonize one another. “Kill your demons,” I said.

Westboro has long been one of my demons. Megan Phelps-Roper has just helped me take a step towards following my own advice. Isn’t grace a funny thing?

Let us pause, quiet our minds, still our bodies, breathe deep, and allow ourselves to come into the presence of that which we call Holy.

Eternal, Beloved, Gracious

God of many names

We pause this morning in gratitude – there is so much for which to be grateful

For the beauty of creation that surrounds us and makes us humbled to call this place our home

For the spirit of life that flows through that creation, uniting its people in common breath and common dignity

For the spirit of democracy that allows us as one people to chart our own course

For the spirit of vocation that calls us to give of ourselves in service to one another

For the spirit of trust that makes that service in the name of democracy possible

May we be worthy of the trust given to us

May we live up to the highest ideals of our call to serve

May those who serve today remain focused on the greater vision that gives rise to that call, and not lose sight of it in the midst of our divisions.

May you serve with wisdom and courage this day. May you find the strength to stand when you must, and the humility to bend when you must.

May you open your hearts wide enough to hold every person you serve, remember the common breath and the common dignity we all share –  remember our faces today in this chamber, so that you may look us in the eyes when you leave, that we might know our trust has been well placed.

Eternal, Beloved, Gracious

God of many names

For the gift of this day and the values that bring us together in the work entrusted to us, this morning we are blessed to pause and give thanks. In the name of that which we know as Holy. In the name of all the helpers of humankind. Amen.

I confess I have found myself frustrated this past week over the public response to Mitt Romney’s “47%” remarks, leaked from a private fundraiser in May. Just to recap, here’s what was said:

There are 47% of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47% who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it…These are people who pay no income tax, 47% of Americans pay no income tax. So our message of low taxes doesn’t connect. So he’ll (President Obama) be out there talking about tax cuts for the rich. I mean, that’s what they sell every four years. And so my job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives. What I have to do is convince the five to ten percent in the center that are independents, that are thoughtful, that look at voting one or the other depending upon in some cases emotion, whether they like the guy or not.

In the days since the video was released, there’s been a lot of response . . . but not necessarily the right response. From the right there’ve been two basic strategies: distancing (“I’m not him!!”) and apologia – namely a defense of the truth of the statistic in spite of the “inelegant” delivery.

From the left, the responses have been about process (“Is this the end of Romney’s campaign?”), or decrying of the candidate’s character, or lack thereof. The left’s response has been primarily about the character question, and about Romney’s seeming lack of compassion. Most of this has come in the form of, “Yes, but look at the people contained within the 47%!!”

In both instances, the truth of the statistic, and of what Romney is trying to communicate, is not often disputed. Technically, Romney is almost correct (it’s 46% according to the Tax Policy Center, who also note that number is abnormally high due to the current state of the economy).

However, the people who Romney is really trying to talk about are the poor. Look at the phrases used: “dependent upon government”; “ believe they are entitled”; “I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.” These are all standard issue conservative bromides vis a vis “the poor.” From the left, we decry the lack of compassion inherent in those statements. From my side of the aisle, I hear: “But that number includes the elderly! And children! And veterans!” There’s not a lot of challenge about the statistic itself, and the number needs to be challenged, especially if what we’re really talking about is poverty in the United States.

Thus, my frustration. Both ends of the political spectrum (at least from those who have a platform from which to be heard) make their arguments based on myths about poverty in this country that (dammit!) refuse to die. Romney’s remarks have provided us with an opportunity to have a fresh, honest conversation about poverty and “the poor.” And we’re dodging the conversation.

America (red and blue), you are pushing all my buttons this week. Let’s have a chat.
Let’s begin with the most basic question: “Who are the poor?”

Actually, it may be easier to answer the question of who the poor are not.

To begin with, the poor are not a distinctive, discrete class. Not an ethnicity, not a race. Not some secret society whose mysteries are impenetrable. Not some strange alien species bent on invading our home territory. The poor are not a monolithic block of partisans, either. Hell, they’re not even the same people from year to year.

But, mainly, the poor are not something “other” than us.

Hopefully, this is not an earth-shattering revelation for most of you.

And yet, there is so much rhetorical energy spent in this country on painting just that picture.

The myth of the individual, and of the individual’s power to succeed and fail on his or her own merits, is so very strong in this country it is practically gospel. The icon of the “self-made millionaire” permeates American mythology, and the image of “pulling one’s self up by one’s own bootstraps” is an enduring one. Success, we are told, is an individual virtue, and is achieved through individual hard work and determination. And if this is the case – the logic follows – if we own our success as individuals, then we own our failures as well. Poverty, in the popular American mythos, is the result of personal failings. It’s a notion that we trace back to our Pilgrim forbears in New England, a piece of the much idolized “Puritan work ethic.” Personal prosperity was a sign of God’s favor, and destitution a punishment for personal failings in the eyes of the divine.

While the language has secularized over the last four centuries, the concept remains the same: If I am poor, it is because I have failed.

So prevalent and sacrosanct is this myth of poverty in America that almost every anti-poverty initiative in our country’s history has been based upon it, regardless of the political leanings of the policy’s authors. Whether it’s a campaign to promote “personal responsibility” or an attempt to improve the quality of education in traditionally poor regions, these programs are all aimed at improving the so-called “human capital” of those living in poverty. All perpetuate the myth of personal failure.

This is the myth that creates the hyperbolic and wholly fabricated myth of the Cadillac-driving welfare queen. This is the myth that allows a politician to see a other human beings as unworthy of care or concern.

But “the poor” are not beasts to be feared or tamed. “The poor” are not something other than us, and poverty is not a stable segment of the population who pass on a poverty gene to the next generation.

As a nation, we need to reacquaint ourselves with the reality of poverty. We need the real answer to the question: “Who are the poor?”

In the strictly legal sense, “the poor” are any who live at or below the official poverty line, as established annually by the US Department of Health and Human Services. In the year 2012, the individual poverty line is $11,170. For a family of four, the line is $23,050. I don’t know how things are in your community, but where I live, $23K will not support a family of four with anything that resembles security.

Given the cost of living, if a family of four were to pull in $23K, are they really no longer living in poverty? Have they moved somehow magically into the middle class, and are now no longer in danger of losing the roof over their heads, or having to choose between heating their home or eating this week? That certainly wouldn’t be the case in this county.

Is poverty rightly defined by a federally determined threshold?

Consider this: the formula for determining the poverty line was established in 1959. It has not changed in over fifty years, and is calculated thus: the average cost of a subsistence diet for one year – a subsistence diet – multiplied by three. The multiplier was arrived at based on a USDA study from 1955 that suggested that an average of one third of a household budget should be spent on food.

Given the state of the economy today, is this a fair formula? Can we really base a definition of poverty in 2012 on economic studies more than a half century old?

In 1959 when the poverty line was established, the poverty threshold for a family of four was equal to just under 50% of the nation’s median income. Today, the threshold is less than 30% of that median. In other words, with an unaltered formula, the legal definition of poverty has grown harsher and more narrow over the last five decades when placed in comparison to the financial well-being of the rest of the nation. Consider also that nearly half of the legally poor in this country live at less than 50% of the defined threshold, the reality becomes that much harsher. And when that threshold is considered alongside the realities of the rising costs of housing, food, health care, child care, gasoline, and so on, it becomes clear that the answer to my initial question is “no.” The government’s definition of poverty, given the state of the current economy, is unrealistic, and unfair.

In all truth, it’s difficult to develop a concrete definition of poverty free of any arbitrary elements. Even the Federal poverty threshold doesn’t take into account the variable costs of living from region to region. The best we can do under the circumstances is to say that poverty is the condition of having to do without basic necessities, and that given the economic realities of today, there are plenty of people who live above the legal poverty line who are still in the position of making difficult choices – are still doing without – every day.

Where does poverty come from?

The proclamations of the Protestant work ethic and its centuries of successors to the contrary, poverty has much less to do with personal failure as it does with systemic failure within the larger society. To give it a medical analogy, poverty is a symptom of larger ills, not the virus that causes them. In his book, One Nation, Underprivileged, sociologist Mark Robert Rank argues that while most Americans will name laziness and lack of motivation as the causes of poverty, we can actually point to larger systemic ills.

The first is the nation’s weak social safety net. Rank notes that currently the United States spends a lower percentage of its GDP on social welfare programs than any other industrialized nation except for Japan (and still we manage to bellyache about how much we spend). What we spend on welfare in this country does very little to lift individuals out of poverty. Our programs affect about half has many people as programs in Canada or the UK, and even those nations are on the low end of the scale for effectiveness of welfare.

The second systemic problem is the failure of the labor market to provide enough jobs that lift people above the federal poverty threshold. In the past several decades, the number of jobs that pay a living wage has been far outstripped by the number of part-time and minimum wage jobs that are available. The current minimum wage is not enough to lift a full-time worker above the poverty line, and the disparity between executive and labor pay has grown at an obscenely exponential rate. Twenty-five years ago, the average CEO made forty times what a general laborer in their corporation made. Today, that CEO makes four hundred times as much. Despite a willingness to work, work does not necessarily guarantee survival. The job market is a losing game for many. We’ll come back to this in just a moment.

It is the third systemic issue which Rank points to that is the most striking. In America, we tend to think of “the poor” as a distinct, discrete class – a “them” – and tend to speak of the poor, the middle class, and the wealthy as fixed segments of the population. Census statistics could conceivably bear this idea out. Looked at from year to year, the percentage of the population that could be classified as “poor” remains relatively stable. However, when we track the life of an individual throughout its course, we are presented with a very different picture.

Since 1968, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) has studied the economic situation of nearly five thousand Americans households, encompassing today nearly 18 thousand individuals. It’s sample is large and diverse enough to give us a representation of the American public. The findings of the PSID over the lifespan of Americans are startling.

Let’s say, for example, that one and a half times the poverty line is still a low enough income point to put a majority of Americans in a position of making the difficult choices of poverty (this would be a number equal to roughly one half of the nation’s median income (the poverty threshold of the 50s). According to the findings of the PSID, over the course of a lifespan, by the age of 75, nearly 80% of Americans will have lived at least one year, and most likely more than one, at or below 1.5 times the poverty line.

Not just 47%, but nearly 80%.

Nervous yet? If I were a presidential candidate, I’d certainly be a little more concerned.

Let me bring that number home. I have 440 Facebook friends. That percentage suggests that 352 members of that community have been, are, or may yet be struggling to live at a level that could rightly be considered poverty. 352 of my friends and neighbors. I won’t ask any of you to identify yourselves. But I’ll raise my hand and name myself as a one time member of those ranks. I know I’m not alone.

Poverty is a systemic issue. We are all part of the system. We are all at risk of paying the price.

Who are the poor?

We all are.

We now come to the point in my rant where my parishioners would remind me that I haven’t yet answered the most important question: So what? Why should I care? And what can I do about it?

The answer is simple. If we are the poor, then the responsibility falls to us to contribute to the end of poverty. Not only is it the right thing to do, but now it falls well and squarely into the realm of our own self-interest and sense of self-preservation (just in case “the right thing to do” is not a compelling enough argument for you).

The task seems insurmountable, it’s true. Where do we even begin?

We begin by reminding ourselves every day that the problem belongs to all of us. That we are the poor. It is mindfulness of that collective sense of “we” that will save us.

It should be an easy enough thing to regain that sense of “we.” How many reading this, how many others do you know, root for the home team, and talk about them as “we?” “We should shore up our defense.” “We should trade that guy.”

“We won!!”

How many of you are actually on the team, have played a down or an inning?

And yet we still say “we.”

We say “we” because we are proud to be part of that community, and we want the team to perform well. Each one of us is more likely to live in poverty than we are to play for the home team, but we still say “we” about our favorite team, and it is that sense of “we” that we need to regain with the rest of our community. It’s our team. We’re proud to be part of it, and we want it to fare well.

Now that we’ve regained a sense of community, we need to talk about musical chairs.

Mark Robert Rank uses musical chairs as an analogy for the systemic failure of the job market we spoke of earlier. In reality the game could stand in just as easily for the way we talk about poverty in this country. In the game of musical chairs there are clear winners and losers – indeed there are destined to be losers. In the analysis of why some people fail to succeed in the job market, or why some people fall into poverty, the talk usually comes down to the personal qualities of the participants – health, education, personal responsibility, motivation, etc. Many bemoan individuals’ “bad choices.” Now, education and skills may have a lot to do with personal success, but as Rank notes, even if we were to somehow put everyone on par physically and mentally before the start of the game – people are still going without chairs.

The question is not why people lose the game. The question is why there need to be losers at all.

There you go. All that’s above is the conversation we should be having. It does us no good to talk about numbers unless we’re looking at the right numbers. It does us no good to talk about compassion if we’re not aiming our bleeding hearts in the right direction. When others decry “those people,” we need to remind the world (and ourselves) that any one of us could be in that number – that none of us are truly secure. When others decry personal failure, we need to speak up loudly about the failure of the community. No government will change things without us making noise and leading the way. After all, no matter which team is in charge, the odds are good they’ll still be using 1959 math to solve a 2012 problem. It’s up to us to take them back to school.

Do you remember  “Magic Eye” images? They were these odd, abstract, poster-sized images that you could find in shopping mall kiosks across the country during the ’90s. The idea was that if you focused in the image in just the right way (“focused beyond” said the image makers) amazing 3D images would be revealed. A “Magic Eye” picture featured prominently in a running gag in one of my favorite movies, 1995′s Mallrats. Willam, one of the “rats” who inhabits the mall, has spent an entire week staring intently at a “Magic Eye” poster, desperately trying to see the hidden picture—a sailboat. “Today’s my day,” he says. “I brought a lunch and a soda, and I’m not leaving until I see this sailboat everyone’s talking about.” Every few minutes, the film cuts to Willam, standing in place and staring, as one mall patron or another walks by, casually glances at the picture for a second and exclaims, “Hey! A sailboat!” Willam grows angrier and more frustrated. In the end, Willam just can’t see the picture. Instead, he let’s loose with a primal scream of frustration and kicks over the display.

I’m with Willam. I never could see the pictures in those things (although I never kicked over a mall kiosk over it).

The human capacity to imagine a future—and to actively work toward it—is a lot like trying to see a Magic Eye picture. Everything beyond the horizon of right now is a blur. And yet, somehow we’re able to focus beyond the blur and call a picture into our minds. Sometimes, when we stand together in a community, we might even be able to see similar pictures, or pieces of the same picture. However, not everyone is going to see the same future. It’s guaranteed to happen. Nine out of ten see the sailboat. The rest see . . . who knows? What then? How do we maintain community when vision differs? Do we argue for our own picture? Do we try to see what another sees? Do we hold our tongue (like Good Ol’ Charlie Brown in the comic above)? Or do we kick the whole thing over in frustration?

My experiences in the less glamorous side of service would soon follow. To earn the Star rank, I was required to take on a personal service project, just me on my own. I sat around stumped for several weeks, unable to figure out what to do (or at least what to do that would have the public impact that Stephen’s fitness trail had made). Finally, my mother (a social worker who knew what was where in town) sent me down the hill to the local homeless shelter. Our Father’s House served the homeless men of the city, giving them a place to sleep and a few meals a day while they tried to get back on their feet.

The shelter put me to work cleaning up around the house – gathering laundry, making beds, cleaning bathrooms. Bathrooms! At that point in my life, I didn’t even clean the bathroom in my own home. It was work that forced me to get over my bad teenage self. Humbling work, and decidedly not glamorous. No one was lining up to take a picture of me cleaning toilets in a homeless shelter, or driving around to the local restaurants picking up the remains of the previous evening’s dinner service, saving it all from a wasteful early death in a dumpster. Besides myself, my parents, and the staff of the shelter (and, eventually, my Scoutmaster), no one would know what I’d done. Not even the residents would know it was me who’d washed their sheets and scrubbed their toilet that day (I worked during the hours that the guests were expected to be out either working or looking for work). All they knew was they had a hot dinner to return to, along with a clean bed and bath – a little bit of dignity in a typically undignified situation.

That’s the other side of service: hard work for little public reward, work that doesn’t change the world in one fell swoop of concrete and pressurized lumber, but rather transforms it one little gift of human dignity at a time. Both kinds matter, but the latter is often the more abundant and necessary. Often we go looking for the big fix and grow dejected when either we can’t find it, or it doesn’t accomplish what we hoped. Often we overlook the latter, because it’s hard to see what difference it will make in the face of all the change that this wounded world requires. But none of us are Atlas. Our shoulders aren’t broad enough to carry the weight of the world’s needs, but they are strong enough to toss a few starfish back into the ocean. The greatest service we can do is to lift up the person right in front of us, waiting for that moment of dignity.

I became a dog person recently. This is a major life change for me. I spent most of my life, up through early adulthood, being wary of, if not downright terrified of dogs (an unfortunate schoolyard encounter at the age of five between a beagle’s jaw and my own posterior is to blame for this – funny now, yes, but at five? . . . not so much). I’ve slowly gotten over this trepidation in recent years. This past August, after much prodding and pleading from my family over many months, we took a ride down to the shelter in Española and adopted a pure-bred New Mexico Brown Puppy. We named her River (after characters in a couple of favorite sci-fi TV shows). She’s a sweet dog, just-right-sized, and (hallelujah!) doesn’t bark and howl along with the other dogs in the neighborhood. In many regards, it’s been like having a permanent toddler in the house, being responsible for another being’s feeding and other bodily functions in ways I haven’t had to in several years, now that the human children in the house are older. Annoying some days, to be sure, but a minimal investment considering what is received in return.

“Welcome,” said one of my Facebook friends, “to a world of unconditional love.”

. . . and . . .

“Dogs,” said one of our members to me, “are great practitioners of the inherent worth and dignity of all people.”

Both statements, I’ve learned over the last six months, are so very true. River loves people, regardless of who they are, and without any prejudice. People are all so very real to her, and every moment with each person is the most important and most favorite moment, whether its children at the farmer’s market or the battalion of plumbers, electricians, and dry-wallers we’ve had tromping through our house lately. River is happy to see everyone, and every person is the most real and most important person in the room. Her little puppy self is an excellent teacher in that regard. It’s amazing to watch people respond to her enthusiasm for them, and amazing to watch everyone walk away from these encounters (myself included) just a little bit happier than before. It’s only a moment, to be sure – a trivial amount of time in the life of a human. But what a difference it makes, that one moment of feeling real and important in the eyes of another living creature.

River reminds me daily that real love means being with a person as they are, seeing them as real and whole, and not just a means to my own ends – a step to getting what I want. It’s a difficult practice with some people. Some days I just want things. Some days I want it all to be about me. Some days it’s hard to be happy to just see and be with another. Some days, people are just annoying. And then River jumps up and licks their hands anyway, her whole back end wagging. She makes love look so easy.

Rumi ends one of his great mystical poems with the lines:

There are love dogs no one knows the names of.

Give your life to be one of them.

I know one of them is named River. I’m hoping each day I can be just a little more like her.

❦

In my sermon on Martin Luther King weekend, I had some things to say about recent developments in the lack of funding for human services here in Los Alamos County (and please give a listen to the sermon on the web page if you were away for the three day weekend). Many of you have asked since then what it is we can do to make a change in our community. The easy answer is, of course, to be visible and vocal in the community – especially in venues where those in power can hear us and be held accountable for making compassionate decisions. How we do that is a more difficult question to answer.

That’s where you come in.

I’d like to invite those of you concerned about the state of human services in the county, and those of you with insight into resources and strategies, to join me for a congregational roundtable on Thursday, February 9^th at 7 p.m. My hope is that together we can brainstorm some methods for speaking our vision and values out into the community. Please feel free to contact me with questions or ideas prior to the 9^th.

❦

One way we do live out our values and show our love is through our charitable work. I received a thank you letter from Self Help for our efforts in December on their behalf. Between special collections on 12/4 and Christmas Eve, our “Share the Plate” contributions, and monies and gifts collected for the local families we sponsored for the Holidays, the Unitarian Church gave over $12,500 to Self Help and its clients this season. This is, quite frankly, nothing short of amazing. Often, charitable giving seems like the least we can do. However, in these tough economic times, it is often a gift more precious than volunteer hours for our struggling non-profit organizations. I am grateful to each and every one of you who reached out in this way this past Christmas, and proud of what this congregation has accomplished together on behalf of those most in need right here at home.

❦

If you’ve never had a chance to experience my “Summer Blockbusters” series during the summer (and even if you have!) I’d like to invite you to get a taste of what we do this month as I present the next in my annual “Discworld Gospel” series. On two consecutive Saturdays, February 4^th & 11^th, we’ll have special “Dessert and a Movie Nights” with dessert buffet and a showing of the 2010 miniseries of Terry Pratchett’s novel Going Postal, the subject of this year’s sermon. While I’ve done my best to describe the world of Pratchett’s satirical novels over the years, now is your chance to see it all brought to life. The presentation is too long to do in one night, so we’ll screen Part One on the 4^th and Part Two on the 11^th. Join us for both if you can, or come to one just to get a taste. Then, join us on Sunday the 12^th for my sermon on the story, with a generous dose of clips from the film.

❦

I’ll be out of the office from the 13^th through the 19^th for a week of study leave and my annual reading retreat.

See you in church!

[full page illumination of "Creation" from the frontispiece for the book of Genesis, Donald Jackson with contributions from Chris Tomlin.]

After shepherds have returned to their flocks. After wise men return to their far off observatories in search of the next star. After the angels have packed up the the trumpets and the sheet music, what happens next?

After a house full of guests have come to celebrate the new arrival and gone on their merry ways leaving behind gifts and probably a terrific mess, we are left with simply this: a new baby, two terrified parents, and their whole lives ahead of them.

After one miraculous night comes the endless daily grind of diapers to change and sleepless nights and midnight feedings.

After the party comes the difficult, joyful, terrifying work of raising a child.

Some give this infant the name “Immanuel” – meaning “god with us.” The angels announce that he will bring peace on earth and goodwill to all people. But before any of this can happen – before god can be fully with us, before he can bring that peace on earth, he needs to learn to crawl, and then walk. Needs to be able to hold his head up and know how to feed himself.

This “god with us” needs care and nurture. And it is a care and nurture that comes from human hands.

The gospels skip over these scenes in the next several decades in the life of Jesus, and so you can understand why this is the part of the Christmas story that so often is missed. Underneath all the miracles and all the spectacle, this one truth is the astonishing, scandalous message of the Christmas story.

Immanuel comes.

God chooses to be with us.

And God chooses to be with us first in the form of an infant. Helpless. Needful. Needing the nurturing, caring hands of humans to come into the fullness of being.

God, the all powerful and all knowing, needs human care.

Astounding!

I don’t know how or why you celebrate the season, or what you believe. For one moment this evening, I ask you to put aside the question of whether you believe in God or not, whether you believe this story or not.

Instead I ask tonight that you hold this image in your hearts and minds: A divine being in infancy, reliant on fragile and fallible human hands for survival.

Every single one of us has been in this position of need, although our memories on the subject may be a little fuzzy.

Before the end of this day, another half million children will be born into this world, some in far healthier conditions than the ones described in this Christmas story, and many more in as poor or even worse conditions than Jesus was. Each of us, however, is reliant on those same fragile, fallible hands.

Our hands.

There is a reason why the image of Mary and the infant Jesus remains one of the most powerful and popular among artists.

The image of mother and child, and the feeling that image instills, is a near universal one. It is a symbol of an essential and an unconditional love. It is no small accident that in both Hebrew and Arabic the word for “compassion” is closely related to the word for “womb.”

Compassion reflects the love and care given by a parent – the love and care needed by a child.

That need for care, for compassion, never ends.

Even as we age, we still need those loving hands from time to time.

Tonight, another half million souls entering this world are in need of that same love and care. Some will even grow up to be as reviled and despised as Jesus was in his own lifetime. Still, they will need that care. We all still need that compassionate hand.

Whose hands will they be?

This is the challenge given to us in the astonishing message of the Christmas story.

Immanuel comes, tiny and helpless.

God with us needs the care of human hands to survive.

And if the promise of Christmas, of peace on earth and good will to all people, is to come to it fruition, then human hands are still needed to nurture it into being. Our hands are needed.

Tonight we celebrate.

Tomorrow our homes will fill with guests and food and gifts. Given the surrounding population, it is almost certain there will be a few wise men and shepherds among us. No angels, perhaps, but certainly a horn or two. Definitely music.

Then Christmas Day ends. Our guest go home, the leftover are wrapped, the decorations and the music are stored away, and our homes are left a terrific mess.

The celebration of Christmas ends, and we are left with a challenge in its place: the image of god with us, an infant; the promise of peace and goodwill for all people; the need for our hands to do the work to make it possible.

Christmas has come. Christmas will pass.

But what happens next?