After Christmas, before the year, just a thought, as the green and red of the season give way to the normalcy of winter, as the decorations are now come down, as new year rumblings now become our ordinary days, and as our attention is redirected. Another Christmas season is over.

So the thought is to try to remember the lessons of the story we told.

For though the world seems tilted toward the predictable, and the powerful, and inevitable, you can't read the Christmas story and not get the impression that God might have something else in mind. 

God might have in mind that no matter how long you wait, the instant you are touched by God's Spirit is the right moment. And God would come by surprise, sometimes when least expected, to give grace and wisdom and power for change.  Peace in the storm, direction in anxious times, faith when all feels lost. It's the moment in which you sense that things can hold together—not by your own power after all, but by a Spirit beyond you.

For this story measures our time in new ways
And this story measures all time in new ways.
And this story measures what matters in new ways.
For, you see, this story is not just about. . . .

                                                                        This story is for.  

It's given to us to be meaning and hope for those who suffer out of sight and who need to be heard. And it's given to awaken the hearts of those who live in peace and want to serve. 

It is a gift traced in every gift we give each other.

. . . for the sake of our healing,
. . . and for the sake of our freedom,
. . . and to open the possibility of a new future for each one of us, and for all the world, and for all creation.

It's a little story at the center of all things—quark to quasar.
It's a little story in the fulcrum of time—from the fleeting to the eternal.
It's the story, oddly enough, of God. 

What difference might it make for you, now, in 2015?