I’m not going to do a traditional “Odds & Ends” today because I have a few things to say before I turn out the lights on this weekend’s blogging.
First of all, let me say that I have totally enjoyed my two weekends of blogging here at Political Animal this December. I am exceedingly grateful for this opportunity and look forward to many more in 2015. That’s my selfish reason for asking each and every one of you to click on this link right now and make a donation to the Washington Monthly. Regardless of what awaits us next year, I’d like to be here to talk about it.
Secondly, I’d like to share something with you that I’ve chosen to meditate on every year at this time. Whether you celebrate Christmas or not, what kid oakland wrote 10 years ago about the man who’s birth we’re supposed to be celebrating is an important message for all of us.
Let me tell you something about the Jesus that I know.
He was a real man. Born in a poor region to working poor parents. He loved learning, he loved his mother and his father.
But he left them and spent his life with the poor, the outcast, the rejected, the defiled, the sick, the sinners, the bedraggled, the bereft, the self-hating, the lonely, the banished, the foul, the miserable, the desperate and finally, those sick with their own power.
He did this, not because of his ideology or his creed. He did this not because of his doctrine. He did this, quite simply, because he loved them. He preferred them.
Their company, their stories, their lives, their environs, their plight and their faith.
And they loved him. Because he touched them. He looked them in the eye and believed in them. Because, at the end of the day, when they looked to him they saw that his commitment to them was a commitment unsullied by qualifier or clause. It was a commitment to love them, even upon pain of death. And they saw in him, a love that promised to love them as they were, who they were…fully, without judgement or flinching glance, or hypocritical accommodation.
This man, Jesus, was surrounded by friends and disciples whom he mentored….not by carping or enforcing rules…but by example and teaching. By the force of his actions. By his resolute commitment to the least, the smallest, the most in need.
And finally, what better way to go out than with an inspirational message from John Lennon as seen on the faces of these beautiful children.
See you next year!
