My grandfather, a history professor, focused much of his research on the Church's (murderous) treatment of heretics during the Middle Ages. His findings prompted a wariness towards organized religion that remains strong in my family. I was raised as a third-generation Unitarian, but have thought of myself as Buddhist for a few years now.

Despite all this, I love Jesus. He greatly inspires me. Partly it's the sheer compassion he showed in so many Biblical stories. Partly, it's the mystery of the healings he performed--could they really have happened? Partly, it's the wise, pithy teachings that lodge in the mind, gently provoking for years: e.g., "The Kingdom of Heaven is all around you, but men do not see it." Partly it's how he always, always included the outsiders looked down on by polite society--routinely turning down invitations from the town elite to bunk with the tax collector, asking the Samaritan woman at the well for a drink of water, healing the Syrophonecian woman's sick daughter, and so on. Partly it's how he seemed to be struggling to overcome his own resistance to his destiny--those 40 days in the wilderness, for example--as though he could foresee the eventual fate of someone who so bravely went against society's grain.

Last night, Rodney Smith, the guiding teacher of the Seattle Insight Meditation Society, put it perfectly, encouraging us at Christmastime to "celebrate what consciousness can become."

And indeed I will. Merry Christmas!