One day this past week I took a short late afternoon walk in Madison Square park, just south of Marble Church. In one of the lawn areas, there is a public sculpture display. The artwork, entitled "Markers," are four large black-and-white shapes with holes cut out in various places.

Nearby the sculptures this sign is posted: "We encourage you to interact with the artwork, but for your safety please DO NOT CLIMB the sculpture."

As someone who sees metaphors wherever there is prose, probably including candy wrappers, I was charmed -- and stopped -- by these unexpected words. First I wondered about how to "interact" without climbing...lots of ways. Then I thought of the many ways we need, or think we need, to stay "safe" in a situation, and thus avoid "climbing," aka engagement, real meeting, real risk.

Mostly I thought about all the times I think I am interacting with something or someone when in fact I am just staying safe. Yes, sometimes distance and boundaries are not just called for, but essential.

But other times, heck, I need to interact, climb, dive in, wrestle, and otherwise thoroughly engage what needs to be engaged or see what needs to be seen. Because what I can no longer avoid is too urgent, too real, too vital to be kept at a safe distance.

Like, for example, Christmas. The rawness of it: birth, vulnerability, Herod's fear of the new and redemptive. How is that fearsome yet longed for birth happening in the lives of the people I love...or in me? What of the darkness and the cold this time of year, and the want and need that are everywhere, and the many ways I can help -- or turn away...pretend to interact, but really pass by the other side.

"For your safety, please do not climb...." But for your humanity, for the part of you that is called to climb this Christmas, to go out on a limb for someone, somehow, and to bring Christ's love into the world...well, I have some thinking to do about that. I invite you to join me. There are still many days left till Christmas.