Tonight ...

Tonight for the first time in over 20 years I am not attending nor presiding at a Christmas Eve Service ...

Tonight I will take time to listen to the Christmas Story involving Scrooge, Bob, Tiny Tim and a host of ghostly visitors who challenge humanity to live the Christmas Story ...

Tonight will be spent with my children ... perhaps their joy and their anticipation will rub off on me ...

But in this moment I can feel only heaviness of heart and soul that comes from the journey I have been on for the last three years since I erroneously attempted to help someone I thought was a friend ... I foolishly tried to help and instead have watched my reputation, my job and now even my calling ebb away in the face of unrelenting toxicity and nastiness.

Tonight there are those who will gather with family and be very much like Little Jack Horner poking his thumb into his Christmas Pudding and pulling out a plum ... they will look back on what they've achieved and proudly say - "OH, what a good boy (or girl) am I!!"

Sadly they take pride for having destroyed something that possessed great value and even greater potential ... but rather than embracing the change that comes from living the gift of Grace, they instead have chosen a path of cowardice and fear that seeks to maintain something that is slowly dying ...

My Christmas Wish tonight is to find a place of Graciousness where hearing the words "Merry Christmas" doesn't grate on my heart and soul ... BUT, today isn't that place nor that day ... today I ache for what has been taken from me by vicious, petty people who have never been interested in the promotion of the Gospel anyway, and who wrap themselves in the facade of being "good Christians" trying to do the "best" for their community, while they fail miserably of offer anything that even remotely resembles a faithful response ...

Today hearing Merry Christmas from the lips of those who did nothing to stop the toxic behaviour of their "friends" and "neighbours" has only deepened the darkness ... cowardice has no place in the Church ... yet too often cowardice is the ONLY way most people know how to live their faith ...

I know Isaiah's words ring true ... but this is one pilgrim who has grown tired of journeying in the darkness ... maybe one day ...

Just not today ... not tonight ...