As Thanksgiving ends and most of us, at least in the West, proceed, ready or not, into the Christmas season, we do well to remember the essence of the moment before us.  It is that, as Jesus put it in Mark 1:15, "The kingdom of God is at hand." It is not a kingdom of arrogance and might, not a kingdom of dogma and exclusivity, but a kingdom of love, a kingdom of community, a community rooted in the truth that God, the great and longed for Emmanuel, the Christ, is with us, with us now, tomorrow, next year, and forevermore.