Growing up I was steeped in christian fundamentalism. One of the things I notice when I reflect on that is that most of the focus was on the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus. Fundamentalists tend to not pay that much attention to the life he lived. It is for that reason that one of my favorite Christmas messages was written years ago by Kid Oakland. Let me tell you something about the Jesus that I know. He was a real man. Born in a poor region to working poor parents. He loved learning, he loved his mother and his father. But he left them and spent his life with the poor, the outcast, the rejected, the defiled, the sick, the sinners, the bedraggled, the bereft, the self-hating, the lonely, the banished, the foul, the miserable, the desperate and finally, those sick with their own power. He did this, not because of his ideology or his creed. He did this not because of his doctrine. He did this, quite simply, because he loved them. He preferred them. Their company,