Christmas has always been a time for me to reflect upon hope. For me hope is a light that bends and stretches between past and future, yet is found in the present. It is the main ingredient of a spirituality focused on resistance, engagement, and change. Jesus, the Christ, whom some remember in these days, inaugurated a new bend in the light, one that flows down the arc of history, shines with us today, and runs forward into the future. I wish for you, dear reader, a sighting of such hope, one that carries you throughout the New Year.
West Coast Christmas

A deep charcoal comes with dusk
as winter drizzles along these
streets of trinkets and fool’s gold
in this colony of doubt.
I’m chilled to the bone.
Then I see high on a
snow-topped mountain,
just above the tree line,
flickering in the dark—
a fire burning by rock face.

Somewhere between
that hikers’ camp and
this falling rain
hums a carol
that calls me to turn east,
cross the stone bridge,
slip through the open door,
and settle on the
pew of hope,
between the crib
and the cross.