Christmas is a time to move into the world of images and dreams, a time to allow the 'make believe' happen. Let us be still and reflective.

The varieties of religious experience call forth hymns and songs, emerging from the varieties of cultures, personality types, and religious expressions. Our worship and song reflects this diversity. We join in sacred worship traditional and contemporary, North American and African, and European and Asian. We chant hymns from Taize and melodies from Iona, and dance to “Siyahamba” (We are marching in the light of God), sometimes in the same service.

So what do I mean by a sacred community or spiritual community, or as Peck would call it a true community? I refer here to an intentional community with an identifiable common purpose. Maybe that purpose is simple to grow spiritually as individuals. It is a community where one can transcend oneself and experience a sense of the interconnectedness of life. It is a community in which each member seeks to see and relate to the divine or the sacred in the other.

May the sounds of every city in every land-- the rush of traffic, the din of piledrivers the hum of power lines, the roar of furnaces

Leader: Give thanks for the Lord’s goodness, God’s love is steadfast and forever. People: God has gathered us from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south, and rescued us from trouble.

INTRODUCTION Who are we? Jesus responded to the Jews preparing to stone him: "Is it not written in your law, 'I said, you are gods?'" John 10:34