Life at 3 miles an Hour

I'm sure that you couldn't tell by my youthful appearance and slim, disciplined physique ...whatever... that I once upon a time held a job with high holiday esteem.  Two weeks ago I was reminded of this when observing a friends Christmas display and about a dozen photos of her children in their growing years sitting on the lap of a jolly fat man with a white beard.  No it wasn't someone's uncle Earl, it was Santa himself.  Some photos contained the real Santa I'm pretty sure, but some were obviously the "fill ins".  That's right, I was Santa.... Or at least a good fill in.  It occurred to me, for literally the first time, that in numerous homes somewhere, probably on the East coast, there are moms, grandma's etc with photos of me in their living rooms at this time of year.  Let me clarify ... They are photos of me in a red suit with their children on my lap.  Anyway, it was a fairly distant memory and only a fleeting thought, until quite by chanc...

I'm having a "never saw this coming" moment...actually several of them seemingly coming in waves.  There are moments in everyone's life that, if you could have stepped outside of your stream and looked in on yourself, should have been quite obvious.  The reality is that few are able to step out of the flow that is rapidly ushering us through life, so every once in awhile we come face to face with those moments.  Our lives flowed fairly nicely through Thanksgiving only to land us on the doorstep of Advent where we encountered an obvious reality that had not yet clearly presented itself.  All of a sudden Joanne and I were struck with a reflection that this year, for the first time in 22 years of pastoral artistry, we are not leading others on a journey towards the birth of Christ.  Simply put, we have no church.  For me there is no wrestling with the birth narratives, praying and being led to extract new and timely hope to people clinging to it.  For J...