Pastoral Thoughts
In the month of December there is a certain feeling "in the air."  I'd say this feeling comes from a long history of December being a month where the usual business, tasks, and aspirations of the year are taken off  "center stage" and replaced for a short time with something else.  The things that take center stage are spending quality time with family and friends and partaking in traditions like drinking eggnog, giving gifts, and decorating the home.  The December tradition of focusing on these things brings real joy into our lives, for friendship - real friendship - is our heart's true desire.  This life is not about  making a lot of money.  It's not about fun parties.  It's not about being cooler or smarter than those around you.   It's definitely not about getting your way.  And it's not even about having great physical health.  Life has nothing to do with our January through November mentalities. Rather, this life is about friendship.  It's about quality time and good activities which nurture the joy that comes through being appreciated  and appreciating others.  For all of us, I hope, Decembers past have given us a taste of this.

In the Christian tradition we hold this conviction about the centrality of friendship in a particular way.  It is being part of the family of God and the friendships therein that bring joy in its natural form.  And not only joy, but also a deep, abiding and pure hope.  For while quality time and good activities we have, they are disturbed by the January through November" world that still has a hold on us.  And so our hope is in the One who has come and will come again, the One who will take the beauty of this season and bring it to maturity.  The certain feeling that comes with December then, we say, is just a distant sense of the future.  And as such it is a gift to be enjoyed.