Three Lenses for Xmas...

So, you've celebrated Christmas or, if outside your tradition, you've revelled at least in holiday cheer, and partaken of some festivity. Why not? Celebration and warmth and mutual giving are not strangers to any tradition, they are a common language across cultures and faiths.

Since Christmas is in the air, however, here are three lenses that might carry the spirit of good cheer forward.

Remember it's a process not an event. Christmas didn't, even for true believers, solve everything. It just transformed it, giving us a lens of loving possibility in the midst of all the grist and gruel of everyday life. So let us embrace that possibility as we participate in its unfolding.

The central feature of this tradition, as CS Lewis pointed out, is Grace -- unmerited love and forgiveness. It is the extravagance of love's inclusivity, visiting us when we least expect it or perhaps even deserve it. Embodying graciousness would be a glorious resolution.

And it abounds in paradox. The "king" is a vulnerable child in a manger, his companions during his ministry are not religious authorities but outcasts, the so called "unclean" and excluded. It is radical welcome. It is love that invades and capsizes our ego. Could we awaken to paradoxes that continue to abound in so many facets of life? And could we ditch our silly "certainties" and exchange them for wonder?

Happy New Year Everyone!