Thoughts on Advent & Christmas

It's December 4, 2006 and it doesn't feel like a Holiday Season at all. Neither like Advent or Christmas. Everything just is... Partly, this is a reaction to having lived without any of our personal belongings for over a year now. I know that's a big part. as I am a 'nester' and to not have the special world of my home to lend a wall of insulation form the horrors of illness, finacial woes and governmental crazies is a sore place to be. But it's more. It's also having lost my Church as it falls prey to an ultra-conservative contigient of men who are incapable of any Christ-like attitude towards the gay men and women they cannot comprehend being part of God's family. Not receiving Our Lord in Holy Communion in order to meet their regulations of what is right and wrong has left a great emptyness. I miss Jesus in the Sacrament so very much - but to deny my sexuality, or my spouse and daughter, in order to receive Him in Communion is wrong. Jesus would not ask me to deny those he has given unto me to love and defend, rather He would wish me to bear this cross of missing Him and remaining true to Mark and Joy, my family.

Mark and I often pray together. We ask Jesus to be our hearts, our minds and our toungues. We ask him, as two or more gathered, to keep His Word of being with us and I know He does stay with us. He does speak for us and He loves us for being true to our vows to each other made in Him. But, I miss Him in the mysteries of the Bread and Wine.

I hope that through this long advent of our souls we will be reminded by Jesus this Christmas that He is reborn to us and in us and that this Christmas, without its trimmings and presents and usual bounty, we will find Jesus as a baby in the manger - and in our daily lives for the coming year.

So, dearest Christ Child, I offer you this desert that Mark and I have been crossing together and ask you to bless the journey and bring it to its end - a rebirth in you our true Love and our Hearts' Desire!