"Substance...................................."

There were only seventeen men at the mission Wednesday, not counting my group and a couple of fellows who run the operation; but then, such as those places be that we visit with the Gospel, maybe a reduction in the number attending our service is something for which we need to give thanks. It was a good bunch, ears and hearts with us as we shared; and it was Tony, again, who seemed to “catch the wind” of the Holy Ghost, bringing us together in where we were going, his words pointing us to Christ, not just his version of the Book. “Salvation is both an encounter and a relationship maintained,” he suggested, “not via religious formulas, but through a commitment of oneself to His companionship in the next step.” I would agree... This weekend those truly in the faith will celebrate the birth of a baby divinely conceived within the womb of a virgin, what can be nothing other than a miracle, a mystery beyond our comprehension. It is an event marking the genesis of what we claim to be so, for without it the first book of the Bible loses much in its own declaration of the beginning. Most of the world and much of the ecclesiastical institution, itself, however, dismiss such proclamation as a fairytale and merely content themselves with the holiday festivities. Their acceptance of the resurrection on the other end of the spectrum has also evolved into nothing more than a traditional ritual, either completely rejecting what appears to be impossible or else carving it into a fictional face on the totem pole. Christ, though, is reality of His own making. He is the breath of life, the bread of our existence, and a river in our soul, that which ought to give its own witness of truth as we go. All else is just humanity in its stumble…..