So this is Christmas?

John Lennon poses this question in his song "Happy Christmas (War is Over)." As frenzied as life is nowadays, it's bizarre how some things haven't changed a bit

A war (ooops, according to the President it is a "battle we're waging in Iraq") has families separated by 6,000-plus miles. I have a co-worker whose son is in Iraq; I think about him, his comrades and their family every day. I pray that he comes home safely, and yet every day I walk into work dreading the worst. His deployment appears to be taking its toll on his mother. She has diminished from trim the extremely thin. Her unwavering professional exterior has shown signs of emotional cracking when we ask about her son and assemble a care package for him. Her trembling thanks leaves us all to wonder if we could have done more.

Similarly, this morning in my inbox I found an e-mail from another co-worker asking for prayers. She has a nephew in Iraq and the family has learned that someone in the nephew's unit has been killed. No word on which member though. I can only imagine that the waiting is nearly as painful and the news someone, some family, is about to receive. And so this is Christmas, Christmas for the 133,000 troops deployed in Iraq and their families this year.

Other lyrics are rolling around in my head, too.

"Do You Hear What I Hear?" promises us a Child who will bring us goodness and light. I hadn't thought about the words until today when Bing was singing them on satellite radio. "Goodness." And "Light." "Goodness" I can comprehend, although I can't say that I see it every day but I get what it's supposed to be. But "Light." That one makes me think a little harder. If someone is bringing light I can only presume it's because I'm in the dark (literally and/or figuratively) and/or I need light on my journey to somewhere. I do believe that Christ is The Way, is The Path, to God. So, could it be that Christ figuratively lights the way, the path, in our journey to God???

I guess the promise of "goodness and light" is still ours, we just have to look for it in this life and know that we are guaranteed it in the next.