Transcript for December 20, 2009 By Bob Kleinheksel

In the vast unknown and in this welcoming sanctuary space we join together in warm community; with the most familiar senses of self and assuring interpretations of the ultimate we gather.

In intimate known-ness and most puzzling mystery we proclaim our interdependence.


For how can any one, any church, any tradition assert it’s superiority when we share so much in common; or in the immensity of it all to proclaim centrality when we know the next nearest star to ours is an amazing 26 trillion miles? We are but a blip, a flash, an atom, a quark in the grand scheme of it all. How daunting and comforting it is to know we share, as stardust, common fate, legacy, story, blood, bone and gene. Let us be humbled by it all and yet not shirk from the grandeur we each possess and can demonstrate to this tired and beautiful world!

The stealth of creeping winter has turned into unabashed clarity of cold and darkened mornings and afternoons. The earth spins between raging fire ball and global freezing; the leaves return to fine filaments of dust becoming old as rocks and yet as new as fresh morning dawn. It is all happening…can you sense it? Everything changing all the time. Can you embrace it, accept it? And now, northern citizens of the sun and earth, the light re-emerges. No longer is the sun’s light hostage to the thief of night. No more fear as our ancestors once had when they lit bone and wood fires to stave off the darkness. Now we parade toward June 21, the season of the lengthening of days. Minute by minute the daylight returns, the cycle continues as it always has…from when we were first oozing plasm in the sea…all the way now to our complex and conflicted humanity. Go with it, enjoy it, trust it.

May beauty, kindness, compassion, a service heart be born in us again this season and all time. We honor the age-old Christmas holi-days, born of pagan passions, transforming now into the celebration of birth and light and hope. It is manifest in us again – a pervasive goodness, a predominant prism of love casting light everywhere. We are the latest of the universe showing itself off, talking about itself, giving itself away both meekly and majestically. There is a christ-like-ness, we as anointed ones, vagabonds, messengers, messiahs leading and bowing to the mystery, pointing to new ways. Selflessly giving, enjoying, enhancing and moving on. Let there be light! Let there be resounding silence; let there be cacophony of celebration with and for each other.

And in the anticipation, in the harried and hurried paces, we honor all those identified within this community – in memory and honor of ones loved. Let us pause to notice those faded, those despairing, those alone, the giftless ones in our midst. Those who are not red or green, but rather gun metal blue. And then….to move beyond noticing: To reach out, to touch, to shake a hand, to look in the eye, to smile, to speak a kind word, to invite out, to check in as a neighbor. We live peace in our every step, thought and word so that it might emanate out to our families, our communities, our schools, our government and to a global village…so that one day, one day all brothers will line up with brothers and sisters will walk hand in hand; when all will truly realize and celebrate the dawn and birth of abundance for all and the coming of light, hope and love in the world. When the sometimes hollowness of “Merry Christmas” no longer violates as shallow expression but rather signals emerging realities of peace and wholeness in our broken world – co-created by the likes of us. Amen.