Maybe as Christians, we'll find shelter together

I browsed the UNICEF catalog the other evening, considering which holiday cards I'll send to friends around the world.

I'm late in choosing them, and the selection doesn't get easier as my world gets larger.

Time was, I automatically chose cards that carry a traditional Christian message of Christmas joy and hope. This joy of Jesus' birth, the revelation of his ministry and the hope of the Easter resurrection, form the heart of my own faith, after all.

But, increasingly, even among my friends who grew up in Christian households, that message is not understood in a way that communicates joy and hope. And some of my friends have other high holy days like Eid al Adha that closes the Hajj my Muslim friends will celebrate this month, or Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur my Jewish friends celebrated in the fall.

I've personally decided it's not a good witness to bless others in a way that seems to be more about what I believe than about the holy happiness I pray for them in their own lives.

I've heard some Christians lament this growing awareness that "Merry Christmas" is no longer a one-size-fits-all greeting. I've heard others even characterize the shift to the more diplomatic "Happy Holidays" as a kind of persecution of Christians.

Since in other countries people are disenfranchised, imprisoned, and even killed for their beliefs, I know that calling this benign greeting "persecution" trivializes the very real sufferings of believers elsewhere.

But the shift does cause suffering, of a sort, here: It's the painful realization that everybody's not like us any more.

And I wonder if we are, in all things, to give thanks, then what is the blessing in that?

Back when I studied sociology, I learned that minority groups usually know majority groups better than the other way around. People without power, without voice, have to be able to read those around them as a way to protect themselves....