Victims of homophobic bullying are not "bringing it up" relentlessly to innocent bystanding heterosexuals. Homophobic bigots are obsessed with gayness so much they imagine it everywhere on their own. (Transphobia seems to be working in a similar fashion.)

We have our head, of course, but reality, in theory, is that which is beyond our head. What we feel is not real, argue the advocates of “It’s all in your head.” But they are hypocrites whose every opinion about your life dwells only in their heads.

There is much we can and do say in life that is not problematic because it is false, but is problematic because it is useless. I see this often as one who stands up for young people.

Anybody who grew up in Boston and learned English in Boston has a Boston accent. Maybe not the stereotypical one, but a Boston accent. As I have interacted with people in other places, I discovered this internalised shame of one’s home region is nearly universal.

I am distracted and distractable and often quite distracting. Clincally diagnosed so. Left to my own devices, I am a mess. My mind wonders and rushes and between idea to idea. Sometimes they rush by too quickly to ever be made manifest into meaningful communication. Sometimes they come like an attack, inescapable and unrelenting. A certain midnight blog post, for example. But distraction’s unrelenting power is a pragmatic hassle at best, and a life-, or at least making-a-living-, threatening risk at worst.

I wish you a Merry Christmas, but it is okay if it is not all merriness for you.

If your Christmas appears to be on the verge of a Hallmark card brought to life, perhaps this blog is not for you. I am happy for you. Your merriness makes me merrier. There no shame in exuberant joy! The lights, the food, the music, the holy story, the companionship of loved ones can come together these December days in a whirlwind of profound happiness. I have experienced that. I have been blessed with many truly merry Christmases.

Our ancestors—our forebears in the faith if not necessarily our own genetic lines—looked around themselves, attentively. They knew the flowers. They knew the trees. They knew the animals. They knew the stars.

Their attentiveness went beyond what they could see. They felt warmth from bushes that burned but were not consumed. They heard still small voices in the quiet. Above all, they felt solace, love, comfort when there was no humanly reason to feel any of those.

The real challenge with today’s task, discussing sacred spaces in a secular world, begins with the title of our discussion today. How do we find or create sacred spaces in a secular world?

Well, first, I would ask, is there truly such a thing as a secular world?

What is secularism, of course, is no new question in Québec.

Even in the Bible, the “Bible days” of prophets miraculous speaking with God–the voice from a flaming bush to Moses, the whisper in the middle of the night to the boy Samuel–were already “long ago.” If we believe in an omnipotent God, that is an all-powerful God, there is nothing too miraculous, or to use a more modern word perhaps, too ridiculous for God to be able to do. If there is an omnipotent God, there is no reason why God cannot send angels or speak as a thundering voice from heaven; no reason why that cannot happen any more than it happened “long ago.”

Statler and Waldorf remind me of the internet, and the all too often good advice, “Never read the comments.” Whether it is a news story, a someone’s YouTube video, or people sharing photos on Facebook or Instagram, the negativity is overwhelming.

I remember when I was a little kid, and my mom told me something that made me turn red in embarrassment. A simple, universal truth that made me really uncomfortable: I was born naked. And so was, it turns out, everyone else. Now as a dad, an uncle, and having been a chaplain in a children’s hospital, I can attest with no doubt: we were all born naked. With nothing. And totally dependent on others.