This season invites us to reflect on the Christmas story: Mary, "great with child," and Joseph desperate to find a safe place to give birth, they end up in a stable. It is natural--and worthwhile--to draw parallels between their experience and the realities of people who find themselves on the margins, searching for home and belonging.

But what if we are looking at the story backward--using our present circumstances as the lens through which we interpret the birth of Christ?