A bitterly cold wind rattles my study window; warm and cozy, I send out a prayer for all who must be outside on this frigid day. In these last, chilled days of the “Aughts,” like lots of people, I’m thinking about next year and what—besides losing holiday poundage—I ought to do more of in 2010.

And I think it comes down to a major theme of Way Opens: trying to “stay awake,” i.e. trying to be ever-mindful of the unfair, layered, systemically racist world I so comfortably live in.

And, as someone I know recently observed, someone who really is amazingly mindful, staying awake is exhausting. So the other major “ought” is taking better care of myself. Yikes.

What are your oughts?

Christmas preparations are 95% under control (next year I really do have to figure out how to simplify this thing—for real) so am going to try to say something, here:

First Off/Let’s be Clear: I am not saying that Barack Obama is Jesus Christ, okay? In this season of both glad tidings/hope/ “Oh, come let us adore him,”  and seriously compromised effort (the health care bill, what didn’t happen in Copenhagen), however, my president and my Inward Teacher have weirdly blended together in my mind.

I’d been hoping to bring this confusing co-mingling to meeting for worship this past Sunday but the big snowstorm and very few people showing up meant I played one of the Wise Men for our Meeting’s Christmas pageant instead. So bear with me; I haven’t gotten very far.

Re Obama: Like the “Jesus Christ Superstar” song goes: “He’s just one man.” Again and again while campaigning, Obama told us: “I am not going to do this (whatever promise he was taking about) alone.” But I, weary at heart, was oh-so-yearning to worship and adore. (And, let’s be honest, the fact that he’s our first president of color means my belief in the guy verged on hero-worship. As readers of Way Opens know, I do this.) So when President Obama commited 30,000 troops to Afghanistan and didn’t single-handedly pull off a Christmas Miracle in Copenhagen, I was crushed.

Re Inward Teacher: My take on the Good News is this: Again and again Jesus was telling us, reminding us that God/Spirit/Higher Power is here, is now, is present. His followers, then and now, weary at heart, yearned/yearn for him to take away the sins of the world, to give us rest, to comfort, to save us. But I believe he was trying to say something quite different: God’s love is within you. Open your heart to that love. That love, that power is your salvation.

What the world learned from Copenhagen is the same message that our former community-organizer president is telling us and what Jesus—and Ghandi—taught: Change happens inwardly first, it happens when two or more are gathered, it often happens in spite of elected officials—and, might I add, when women and children’s voices are heard and supported. “When the people lead, leaders will follow.” A global response to climate change will happen because voices from non-super powers will make it happen.I truly believe this.

Our Inward Teacher, aka the Prince of Peace, brought us glad tidings. Spread the Word.

A stellar, all-black cast, a sexy, talented, gorgeous male lead—Gregg Baker—with the most amazing voice, R &B and gospel music, clever, clever staging, the modernized retelling of one of Shakespeare’s weirdest plays; you’d think I would have loved American Repertory Theater’s  ”Best of Both Worlds.” But I didn’t.

“Why not?” my husband wondered. “You usually love everything. Even when they’re mediocre!”

Here’s what really, really bothered me:

Having seen another version of “Winter’s Tale” recently, I knew that in the second  act, the love affair between a young man (a prince) and his beloved (really a princess but no one knows that, yet) is threatened by the young man’s father (a king, obviously.) The issue? Class. The prince is a prince and his love is, gasp, poor. (A shepherd’s daughter, it would seem.)

How does this play at ART? The king/father objects to this romance because his princely son has fallen in love with a pretty, young whore whose pimp is her own father!

And, sure, the (originally shepherd) father-daughter et al whore house scene makes for some typically ART (read slapstick) theater: lots of sex, lots of mugging, lots of steamy singing and dancing.

Did ART (read white) decide that staging such a scene just too delicious to pass up?

I’ve read that some African Americans object to the movie “Precious” because it “airs the black community’s dirty laundry.” My understanding, however, is that thoughtful people of color were very much a part of the movie’s history. And that’s what makes me very uncomfortable: If white people chose to tell an all-black story, they must do so very, very carefully. I think ART went for the easy laughs, easy sex.

My discomfort was confirmed when, at the very beginning of the scene, the pimp daddy addresses the audience, telling us that he’s now in business, a business that didn’t require a whole lot of capital.

“Can you guess what it is?” he asks coyly.

The woman sitting next to me muttered,”Drugs.”

White people have enough crazy, crazy stories running in our heads re people of color already. I know I do.  I don’t need other white people to reinforce my craziness, thank you very much!

Today’s my birthday; I am now 65. And while it’s sobering to realize I only have 20 or so more years left on this precious earth—if I’m lucky—you know what’s really sobering? Call me naive, call me immature (!?), but in my heart, I think I’d always believed that by the time I reached this venerable age, war would be ancient history.

Yup. I really did.

So: Do I take comfort from that wonderful quote from John 14:27? “Peace is my parting gift to you, my own peace, such as the world cannot give. Set your troubled hearts at rest, and banish your fears.” * Is this what a serene, wise old woman should do? Set my troubled heart at rest? (I’ve only been legally old for a few hours, now, so am still finding my way.)

Well, yeah, there is comfort in that “such as the world cannot give” reminder, that what-can- you-expect? /violence-is-fundamental message from You Know Who.

Even so, dear Jesus, in this month of celebration for your birth, I remain sad and angry and deeply disappointed. Pissed, actually.

I do draw some small comfort from gatherings such as I attended last week, sponsored by Somerville Medford United for Justice and Peace (SMUJP.), when twenty or so people watched a devastatingly depressing documentary re Afghanistan.(No, no, not that part.) During the discussion that followed, to hear others express their confusion and disappointment re Obama was somewhat consoling. As was the fact that there were peace activists there even older than me! Still at it. Still waging peace. Yeah!

So, here we go again. Another war.

* This quote, which always makes me cry, is part of the 12th query from  New England Yearly Meeting’s Faith and Practice. One query is read aloud each month  at Friends Meeting at Cambridge.