"On the sixth day of Christmas my true love gave to me six geese a-laying"-so says the familiar carol. The sentiment is lovely, but it's hardly realistic. After all the gift-giving and celebrating of a very full season, my true love is played out; and even if I wanted something as exotic as a flock of geese a-laying to provide eggs for my omelet, I know I'm much more likely to get plain old scrambled hen eggs today.

I'm sure all of you can empathize with this reality. We are still in the Christmas season, but the big climax is past and most of us are a bit tuckered. The new year is coming soon but it's not here yet. And then we get a scripture for the day telling how the Holy Family became refugees in Egypt before finally getting home to Nazareth. My challenge now is to try to pull these disparate strands together in some way that is meaningful, so that you get more than just scrambled eggs!

One of the predictable topics of conversation at this season is, what did you get for Christmas? We usually ask meaning, what material gifts did you receive? But if we really believe that at its heart this is a spiritual season, the question of what gifts of the spirit we have received is surely more significant. Christmas makes such bold promises about the gifts that are available to us because Christ is born: the assurance of God's love and our own worth in God's sight, the vision of what our lives and the life of our world can be, the gift of meaning and hope for living into the future. So it's a good time to ask ourselves, what did we get? Is there some new or renewed meaning in our lives because Christmas has come? Has God's Spirit touched us in some way? Do we have new hope or a heightened sense of direction? If the answer to such questions is "no" or "I don't know", the good news is that Christmas isn't over yet. Now that the feverish climax of our celebrating is past, we may find the leisure to reflect on the spiritual gifts of Christmas that we most want, and at least begin to find out what we can claim for ourselves.

You see, this is the wisdom of the Twelve Days of Christmas that is our heritage from the Eastern Orthodox part of the church. Spiritually speaking we can't do justice to the richness of Christmas in one day. We need a longer season to, as one writer put, "make room for our own nativity." So these days from now through January 6 are meant to be a spiritual season, a time for reflecting on what difference God's gift in Christ makes in our lives, and what difference we yet hope it will make. So don't treat Christmas as though it were over now, because it isn't! We can take time in these quieter days to "ponder all these things in our hearts" as Mary did, and claim all that Christmas has to offer us.

Our being intentional and focused about this is all the more important because such gifts of the spirit are often treated roughly by the world. Here's where Matthew's story of the Holy Family becoming refugees becomes relevant. History tells us that when the paranoid King Herod started hearing prophecies and rumors of a Messiah being born, he ordered all male Jewish babies killed in an effort to eliminate any threat to his throne. So Mary and Joseph had to flee to Egypt to protect the life of their son; and there they lived as refugees for some time. And the parallel for us is that the world may well not be kind to our Christmas gifts either. If our gift is one of hope, the world will challenge it with its cynicism and despair, and will try to call our hope into question. Especially in the post-9/11 world, doubt and pessimism often seem more virulent than hope. And if Christmas has given us a vision of some cause or purpose that we want to give ourselves to more fully, the world will try to confuse us with competing values and all the trivia of living. The world is not naturally kind to Christian values and priorities, and we leave ourselves open to being disillusioned and robbed of our heritage if we don't take that into account. That's why we need to be focused and intentional about what our Christianity means to us, so that it doesn't just get dissipated into the surrounding culture. And if we succeed in this, there will be times when we too will feel like refugees, at odds in important ways from what much of the world lives for and cares about. But the point is, if we know we've got hold of something valuable and worthwhile, we will be willing to be refugees to hang onto it.

I want to add a word here to you students who are here today. One of the value questions facing you now is whether your education should be narrowly focused on acquiring the right skills and knowledge for a good-paying job, or should education also serve to broaden and enrich your understanding of life as a whole? Should it help to shape and enhance the kind of person you become, including your spirit, or does it only have to do with your material success? From a Christian perspective the nourishment of the human spirit has always been a priority, which is one reason the church has historically been so invested in schools and colleges. But it may well be that if as a student you hold out for getting an educated spirit, you may feel like a refugee among your peers. You could be seen as "uncool" and "not with it." But I believe it's worth being that kind of refugee-not only because of what that will do for you, but also because of the kind of contribution you will make to your world because you have an educated spirit. I continue to be grateful that my education went in that direction.

The conclusion of today's saga of the Holy Family is that eventually their refugee days in Egypt ended and they made their way home to Nazareth. Luke's gospel tells us Nazareth was home to both Mary and Joseph, so that is naturally where they intended to raise their family. You and I may not be so clear about where our spiritual home is; but the end of one year and the beginning of a new one is a good time to ask, are we headed in a direction that will eventually lead to a home we want to claim? When the direction we're headed leads us somewhere, will we be glad we're there-or will we wish we were somewhere else?

My sense is that defining home in a physical or spiritual dimension is elusive today for many of us. A few of you have lived in Santa Monica or environs your whole life, and this really is home for you. But most of us have lived enough different places for long enough that we're not sure where our hearts call home. And what destinations are compelling for our spirits? In years past people had relatively clear visions of lives built around intact families, a relative level of comfort, a single career, and moral living. But today it all seems a lot more complicated. Human relationships seem more stressed and uncertain; careers keep shifting under our feet; the meaning of morality grows grayer; and there are more competing options to sort through as we try to define what makes life good. We may well not be able to define the place where we hope our spirits will arrive in this life. Many people are saying that the events of September 11 have helped them clarify their priorities; yet articulating a spiritual destination in the larger sense can still remain elusive.

I wonder if it may be more realistic today to think of home in the spiritual sense not as a settled place or a fixed condition, but as an evolving path we're called to travel. I believe that's true for me. I don't believe I have the clarity of vision to know where my spirit is finally meant to arrive in terms of what I make of my life. But what I can do is identify some of the directions that I believe will lead toward home. For example, I can think in terms of using my God-given gifts to make a positive difference, and living out values that matter to me, and building relationships that nourish me and others. As one of my spiritual mentors, Dr. George MacLeod, put it, I can "follow the light I see, and pray for more light." The poet Rilke talks about being "patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart" and loving the questions of life themselves. "Perhaps," he says "you will then gradually . . . live along some distant day into the answers." That's a word I can relate to.

But there is one dimension of the spiritual journey that seems especially important in our post 9/11 world, which I would call strength of soul. It has to do with one's inner spiritual dynamic and resilience. It's what enables one to keep one's bearings and stay grounded when everything all around is shifting and in turmoil. We're not likely to have strength of soul unless we pursue it and intentionally cultivate it; but when we do, it becomes a foundation for everything else. In his book Fear No Evil, the Russian writer Natan Sharansky tells of his experience being arrested by the KGB when he was only 29 on charges of treason and espionage, and sentenced to nine years in prison. His "crime" was that he had publicly advocated the right of Soviet Jews to emigrate to Israel, and had been active on the committee monitoring Soviet compliance with the Helsinki accord. Going into prison, Sharansky was not a particularly religious person. But as the KGB increased the pressure on him to "confess" his crimes and recant, he found himself turning more and more to the book of Psalms his wife had given him when he was imprisoned. He discovered astonishing comfort and resonance between his own fearful bondage and the oppression suffered by many of the psalmists. Their prayers became his own, strengthening his soul and preserving his sanity and hope. At one point the KGB took away his Psalm book and threw him into a solitary "punishment cell" for 186 days in an effort to finally break him. But by then the Psalms had done their work, and he had strength in the marrow of his soul to hang onto his own integrity and resist. When he was released and left the Soviet Union, the only personal possession he took with him was the Psalm book.

Surely none of us ever hopes to have to face such dire conditions for soul-building as Sharansky faced. Yet the challenges are there for us as well, especially now, to grow a strength of soul that will allow us to keep our bearings and remain true to ourselves and live in hope. We all will need soul power, wherever our journeys of the spirit may lead.

I began by talking about the spiritual gifts of Christmas. Now I want to close by suggesting the link between those gifts and our journeying toward home. I believe God's Christmas gifts to us, as God's gifts in all seasons, are intended to help us find our way to a destination we're glad to call home. And if that's not the direction we're headed, we may need to ask for some new gifts that will serve us better. For Christ came into our world to be "a lamp for our feet and a light for our path." Our job is to find the dimensions of light that point the way home for us. So our reflections as the year ends are an opportunity to consider gifts received, and gifts we are still looking for. What gifts of the spirit do you celebrate with gratitude at this season? What gifts will you reach out for as Christmas continues? What gifts will help lead you home to your Nazareth?