Children are at the very heart of the message of Jesus. At infant dedications or baptisms many Christian ministers recite the words of Jesus' , "Let the children come to me for theirs is the kingdom..." Children's health care is both a moral responsibility for parents and a society that takes seriously the moral injunction to care for the least of these.

As the father of a 2-year-old I realize that his mother and I are responsible for my son's nutrition and health care needs. As a person who takes seriously the gospel message to care for the children of our society I expect a nation's moral compass to place children's health care at the top of its moral agenda.

What does this mean for health care for children? It means that as part of our moral and family values conversations this should be a major topic. While well-intentioned people could disagree on the specifics and best way to fund health care for children, few would disagree that it is an essential part of a society's responsibility to future generations.

Several decades ago, theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer articulated the ethical query that we should all ask ourselves when discussing policies that effect the next generation, "How will future generations live?" A quintessential part of our moral responsibility to posterity is ensuring that all children would be loved, nurtured, and provided access to health care.

Christians serve a Lord who was beaten, marred, and crucified by a power that routinely tortured and killed those it considered its enemies. The crosses of the Roman imperial order were ominous realities and nefarious practices of a republic that had lost its way and long ago yielded to the temptations of power. Torture of any human being, (if by this we mean the inflicting of excruciating pain on someone) including those who are considered the most heinous criminals, diminishes our common humanity. People of different faiths, humanists, and atheists throughout history have warned of the scars that torture leaves not only on the body but on the soul, psyche, and conscience of the tortured, the torturer, and the society that condones these practices.

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Often holidays are filled with tension (perhaps waiting for hours in an airport, commuting three hours in traffic on what is usually a 45-minute drive, having to cook a large dinner and then having people cancel at the last minute, debates over politics and faith at the dinner table). Still, perhaps the biggest tension comes from unmet expectations. We expect all things to go well and have a holiday season like in a television special. Life we learn continually is not a sitcom.

Thanksgiving is a time of enormous gratitude for me. Two years ago on Thanksgiving Day my father was released from the hospital after receiving a liver transplant from a donor who remains anonymous to this day. Two years removed from that experience I've reflected on the significance of the gift of this organ donation and its significance for me and my family.

Perhaps the lesson I most learned from that "Thanksgiving of Organ Donations" is that my expectation should be to love life, friends, and laughter. The faith, religion, age, gender of that generous organ donor were not at the center of my gratitude. Rather, that she or he gave the greatest gift, "life." So this holiday season your family and friends may not give you the gift you expected they may not agree with you politically or ideologically, or agree about anything. Still be grateful for their life and expect only that love is its own reward.

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As we enter into the holiday season, in spite of the ethnic, religious, and political strife that still encompasses our shared humanity... we have much for which to be thankful and hopeful. As a pastor of an Evangelical congregation in New York City, I often remind my congregation that the message of Christmas spoken by an angel was, "Peace on earth and good-will toward humanity."

Recently, I read my friend and author, (also "On Faith" blogger) Brian McLaren's book, "Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope" I was reminded of why I am hopeful and thankful. The hope I cling to and share is not a hope that ignores the realities of genocide, racism, poverty, and war. Rather it is a hope that says those things are not the last word. In short, my hope is not an "opiate for the masses" that seeks to ignore life but one that seeks to speak life-affirming alternatives to the challenges of our shared human journey.

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