The other day, I heard a story on the radio that I just can't stop thinking about.  It was the one-year anniversary of the shootings in Newtown, and Tovia Smith of NPR reported on one family's response to the murder of their six-year-old daughter, Ana Grace.  The Marquez-Greenes have had a real effect on my prayer during this Christmas season, and I want to share some of their story with all of you.

December 14, 2012 was undoubtedly a day of horror and bottomless grief for the Marquez-Greene family.  But December 13 was a day of grace that Ana Grace's mom, Nelba, holds with deep gratitude.  That morning, before school, Ana-Grace was practicing the piano, and somehow managed to knock the entire nativity set off the piano.  The family had to leave for school and work, and that afternoon,when Ana Grace and her brother Isaiah returned home from Sandy Hook Elementary School, a broken baby Jesus was still lying in pieces on the living room floor.  For some reason, mom Nelba decided to ignore the mess and to abandon the usual rush of activities and errands.  She suggested that the whole family go out for a Christmastime treat at the Cheesecake Factory.  The family ate double desserts, extra pasta at dinner, and took goofy photos of each other on the parents' phones.  It was, says Nelba Marquez-Greene, "the greatest gift."

Jimmy Marquez-Greene, Ana's dad, is a jazz musician; he was unable to play for nearly a year after the shootings.  Nelba, a therapist who worked with troubled young people and the mentally ill, put her practice on hold.  The family has decided to focus on doing something positive, founding the Ana Grace Project, a group dedicated to building community, preventing violence, and seeking healing.  Nelba Marquez-Greene sees these goals as a possible antidote to the kind of isolation that can lead to hate and that seems to be a common thread in stories of mass shootings like the one at Sandy Hook.

Marquez-Greene said, "People say to me, 'I can't believe what that monster did to your baby!' Well, you know, it's true something terrible happened to Ana, and that was a terrible day.  But if we even use that language: 'monster,' if we talk like that, we already make a separation between us and them.  And it doesn't work that way."  On December 14, as Marquez-Greene set up for a large conference as part of the Ana Grace Project, she set up a candle for each of those who died last December 14, and she found herself thinking of the shooter and of his mother, whom he killed.  "Do we have a table with 26 candles, or do we have a table with 28?"  She lit 28 as a gesture of compassion.

The radio spot on NPR had an almost unbearable audio piece of Ana Grace playing the piano with her brother Isaiah.  And the opening conference on non-violence and community, Isaiah played the same piece, but this time as a solo.  His mother said out loud what I'm sure every listener was thinking: "He should not be at that piano by himself."  And yet, she was able to say that her greatest job is to raise a son who is able to love and receive love from others.

To me, this story is Christmas.  It is about a love that is more powerful than hate, about human vulnerability and human strength, and God's willingness to enter into every bit of it.  One year after Ana's death, her dad was finally able to play music again.  He recorded a song that he wrote with his friend Harry Connick, Jr.  It is called "Love Wins."

My hope for all of us is that we will remember not just in this season but all the time that time is precious and none of us knows how much time we will have.  I invite all of us to ignore the busyness and activities for a moment or two and take the time to be present to folks we love, and to be willing to say "I love you," or to mend relationships that are frayed.  I hope that you will be as inspired as I was by the Marquez-Greene's choice of compassion in the face of utterly unspeakable tragedy.  Nelba said, "At the end of the day, I don't know why this happened.  I didn't get to choose it.  But I get to choose my response now.  I do get to choose now."

Bad things happen.  Things don't work out the way we hope or even, sometimes, the way we deserve.  That is the truth.  But the greater truth is this: Love wins.

Christine Camper, Kevin Cellucci, Betty Fraser, Bernice Herrick, Scott Johnnene, Thomas and Henrietta Kane, Debra Katt-Lloyd, Tony Lopes, Lynn McDonald, Rheta McKinley, Elsie Saunders, Bishop Thomas Shaw, Kevin Smith, Jake Torrisi, Ralph Ventola, Stephen Wagner, Michael Webb and Nicki Zitoli.