On the news last night was a story about the 3 top selling cd's this Christmas. Number one was the relatively new Coldplay but numbers 2 and 3 were old timers AC/DC and Metallica. The story went on to talk about how people are buying what they are calling "comfort music". Not that AC/DC has ever been classed as "comfort music" before! We are all drawn to the familiar. To that place where deep down we find something that we know. We're probably not even aware of it most of the time.

Earlier last night we went to the service at our Church. Each Christmas we have an evening where we bring our 'gifts' to Jesus. People sing or read, they do drama or share a memory. Last night was wonderful. I often go to services like this bracing myself to be bored. But not last night. It felt like a family gathering. Like a real community getting together and laughing about memories of Christmas' past, about very real experiences in the present and how in the midst of everything is this tiny baby who changed the world. The last to share their gifts were some singer/guitarists. As Harald softly strummed the guitar and sang and I felt myself pulled back in time from somewhere in the recesses of my brain. I remembered how my family would gather (aunts,uncles,cousins) in the summer in our backyard. There was always a guitar and eventually some would join in with singing - probably Johnny Cash. The family gathering was nothing like the worship gathering in its purpose - but I felt the familiar. I felt the same comfortable place of being with a group of people who mattered in my life and being in community with them.

Kinda like buying an old Metallica or AC/DC album. It's the comfort of being in a familiar place, a comfortable place where memories are made. It's probably especially important at Christmas and even moreso with the unfamiliar territory we are entering into globally.