A few years ago my family had a nightmarish Christmas.

We found ourselves at a mall, just before closing. I felt a special connection with all the other down-to-the-wire last minute shoppers.

In fact, to this day I have a great fondness for those people–the outliers, the late-workers, the Walmart cashiers, health professionals who have to work during the one or two times a year our culture shuts down for “family.”

The “family” in the nativity story is a pretty bedraggled eleventh hour at the mall sort of tableau–teen mom, far from home, no room at the inn…

It is a lonely story. We are all safe in the stable. There may not be a rocking party in it’s quiet grubbiness, but it is the birth of hope.

Come in. There is room for us all…