Christmas Pastor's Pen

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 My Favorite News Channel

I have visited a lot of hospital rooms, sometimes before or after a surgery, or to pray with someone drawing near to death. It is a sacred privilege, and while often uncomfortable to deal with the realities surrounding those visits, it always feels holy, and sometimes I bear witness to the holiness with tears on my way out. 

When I was first learning to go on those visits, sometimes I'd be surprised to walk into a hospital room with Extreme News!!! blaring in the corner. Here in a place of healing, where energy should be put into recovery, people succumbed to their addiction to constant information, adrenaline inducing headlines, and the onslaught of commercials that is part of that whole circus. As a people pleaser, early on, I was reluctant to dare ask them to turn off what they obviously wanted to be playing. But that didn't last too long after enduring a blaring viagra commercial during through the Lord's Prayer. Now, I go straight for the remote, often attached to the bed, and hit the off button before getting to any pleasantries or prayer time. Turn off the noise, it's time for Holy Work. 


My favorite News Channel, and perhaps especially this time of year, is the Good News or Gospel that acts as a time machine bringing the life of Jesus to us, along with the miracles around him and the struggle of those who hope to follow his Way. That's news worth tuning in to. Good News of God among us: born to some poor migrants in a barn. A light shining in the dark, and not overwhelmed by any amount of darkness, no matter how how many other news channels are focused on any darkness they can find. 

Turn it off. We are each wounded and in need of healing, even if we are not in a hospital bed. We could all use a little more quiet, to turn off the Extreme News!!! (There's no actual channel that I know of, take your pick from the left or the right, they are all guilty of enabling our addiction.) Pick up the Good News Channel, or just look around and see the good things happening around you. If you don't see Good News at first, go make some. Jesus saw fit to move right in among humanity, interrupting whatever we thought was so important, to show us a new Way. He is with us still, but we tend to distract ourselves. In this Holy Christmas season, turn it all off, and tune in to what is true and Good. 

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