I was talking to my editor not too long ago, and I was telling her that when I sit down to write, I just sort of open up my head and let whatever is in there fall out onto the paper. Seems to be a system that works fairly well, but with the Christmas season coming up, I thought that a thematic approach might be in order. After all, people do expect something at least remotely heartwarming right about now. Well, I'm not so sure that I can "do" heart-warming, but, what the heck, I live dangerously, I face high school kids every day, I'll give it a shot. Now, I'm not real big on knowing exactly where to find scriptures in the Bible. In fact, I'm kind of anti-attaching a book and verse number to a scripture, almost like it's part of the scripture itself. Kind of takes away from the meaning for me. But, enough of my idiosyncrasies. There's a scripture that says, "Faith is the substance of things hoped for." If you really want to drive yourself crazy,

contemplate that for a bit. Faith? Substance? Hope? I'm not so sure that I have the real handle on that faith thing, but hope, now that's a subject that I at least know something about.

I, like most people, have a circumstance in my life that I've grappled with for many, many years. I've fought with it, wrangled with it, hated it, loved it, surrendered to it, and ultimately been baffled by it. And I've hoped. Now most people think of hope as this wonderful, pink-cloud kind of experience - beatific smiles, peaceful sighs, a cherubic kind of thing. Not me. To me, hope is a greedy little leech that has permanently attached itself to me. It's slippery and it holds on tight. There have been a lot of times when I didn't want to have hope. I've tried to kick it out. I've steadfastly turned my back on it, refusing to acknowledge its presence. It made me angry. After all, I'm not stupid (can you see God rolling His eyes on this one?), I've seen the facts of my situation and faced them head-on. Hope, in my circumstance, is a sucker's bet. But still, that greedy little leech won't let go. Often, I would think, gosh, it would be so much easier if I could just give up on this. Let it go. Give it a nice burial and be on my way. But, no, that dang leech is still there. Like an arthritic limb that throbs when the weather is cold, my relationship with hope is, while not comfortable, at least familiar. And, if truth be told, at times, I have a grudging attachment to it.

But this is the season of hope, so many of us have been taught. And sometimes, hope isn't a familiar little leech. Sometimes it is a desperate thing. I can well imagine that hope must have felt pretty desperate to Mary at times. "I hope that Joseph will understand...I hope that I won't be stoned to death...Boy, do I hope I won't be stoned to death...I hope that I won't die in childbirth..."

A very young, very scared girl, grappling with the power of God within her. Yes, I can well imagine that hope would surely be the tenuous thread which she hung onto for dear life.

There, in that little backwater Middle Eastern town, with its scandals and gossip, births and deaths, people working, couples courting, the little tragedies and triumphs of daily life, was the culmination of thousands of years of hope.

The hope of all those who falter. The hope of those who battle against hope. The hope of those who believe and those who struggle in vain against belief. The hope of those who find frightened relief when their father's hand touches theirs as they slip away from what we know into a better place. Hope has drifted away and left FAITH, that rock-hard substance in its place.

Hope became substance in that little town.

What could I ever say that would top that?

So, I won't wish you a Merry Christmas, or even a hopeful one. But,

like the stubborn half-Jewish, half-Christian that I am, I wish you substance.

May God Bless you.