Category Archives: Journal

Getting What We Deserve

We tend to subscribe to the idea of good things going to those who deserve them. People who earn high salaries should earn them. People who receive charity should be the “deserving poor,” in need only because of a bit of bad luck. Politicians who win elections should be the best qualified.

We know, of course, that it doesn’t always work that way, but we want the rules to favor the deserving as much as we can make them do so.

Many of us, however, did not earn a good many of our blessings.

I did not choose my parents, who loved each other as well as their children, and worked hard to buy and maintain a home for us. That home, wonderful for the love in it, also eventually provided, when it was sold, the financial help my brother and I needed to start toward home ownership ourselves. Even more important, of course, were the good habits instilled by our parents in terms of managing money.

The idea of “no free lunch” has merit in that we should earn our own way, not be dependent on handouts we didn’t work for. However, should little children, having no part of their parents’ lifestyle choices, not have enough to eat or a safe home because of choices they had no part of?

I don’t suppose I have a definite answer to the question of how financial blessings should follow at least some baseline rules, yet that all those who cannot take care of themselves be taken care of.

However, we could ensure that no powerless person is unable to meet basic needs, be they children, adults with physical or mental conditions they had no part in causing, or those struck by momentous events they did not cause.

Jesus Christ did not seem concerned about how deserving were the people he ministered to. Jesus once called a man back to life simply in pity for the man’s bereft mother, a widow. He also healed a Roman centurion’s beloved servant, even though the Romans were overlords of Jesus’ people. Once, on the way to heal a religious official’s little daughter, he stopped to assure healing to a sick woman accidentally placed in his way.

And, as another example, our public school systems are ones we generally desire, without thinking about it, to benefit all children, those of the undeserving as well as the deserving.
The idea is not to sanction public money ripped off by the undeserving. It is, as much as possible, to see that a country as blessed as is this one, will provide all with certain minimum care and possibilities.

And we can all support private groups, including our religious communities, known for providing hope and care to “the less fortunate.”

Early and Late Bloomers

In the play 1776 (later made into a movie), John Adams and Ben Franklin visit Thomas Jefferson, who is struggling to compose a declaration of independence for the proposed new nation. Adams and Franklin inspect the writing.

“This is awful, Tom,” one of them says. He reads a part of it. It sounds like something a grade school child might compose. Eventually, after Jefferson spends time with his wife, whom he has missed terribly in Philadelphia, he writes the Declaration of Independence that we know today.

Sometimes my writing reads like this fictional Jefferson’s first efforts with the Declaration. Really awful. About as able to move the reader as a nursery rhyme. No, a nursery rhyme is better.

I hate the first writing of a novel. It’s forced, and I don’t know what I’m doing.

I love editing and rewriting. That when I experience the high of writing that moves me. I begin to know what it’s about.

This understanding applies to other parts of our lives as well, and not only for writers. Some of us run well right out of the gate. Others of us have to prod ourselves to keep going until, finally, we find our pace and our joy.

Why Me, Lord? (Kris Kristofferson)

Sometimes when the world seems to have reached a new level of desperation, I’m comforted by certain remembrances of my childhood. (I realize I’m fortunate in having those memories.)

When I was a small child, country music (maybe you call it folk music or something else) was a part of my life. I lived in a working class eastern suburb of Nashville, Tennessee. At the time, this kind of music was mostly followed by that same American kind of working class. The Grand Ole Opry was in Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium on Saturday nights in downtown Nashville, a long time before its modern version in the Opryland amusement park. I attended this older version a few times, often to take visiting kinfolk, hungry for the South they had left for jobs on the West Coast.

A few of the stars on the Opry lived in our modest neighborhood, at least one within walking distance of our house. We thought of country music as a part of our ordinary culture.

So when the world’s and this nation’s troubles seem to overwhelm, I can sometimes find comfort in listening to that country music, either in older or newer versions.

Take Kris Kristofferson’s Why Me, Lord? One version is copied below. (Apologies if it’s preceded by an advertisement I couldn’t take out.) (Also that you may need earphones.

 

Reading the Comics

Every Sunday morning a half hour or so before my husband and I leave for church, I wander down our walkway to the newspaper box next to the street. I grab the paper and begin scanning the headlines on the way back to the house. Later in the afternoon after church, I enjoy a leisurely newspaper read, including, of course, the comic strips.

During the week, I read a couple of newspapers on the web. I prefer traditional newspapers because I trust them more. It’s easier to sue newspapers for libel than some incognito writer of a wild story on the internet.

No doubt my majoring in print journalism many years ago in college contributes to my favoritism for traditional newspapers. One of two print newspapers in my city at the time actually hired me as a summer reporter (the Nashville Banner.) I began on the “obit” circuit: calling funeral homes to check on which Nashvillians had died during the week, whose passing should be noted in print. After a while, I graduated to interviewing citizens for human interest stories. My final summer on the paper, the editor let me cover a religious convention convening in the city.

Alas, I never became the journalist I had intended. However, I credit my newspaper experience with the regard for the truth pushed by that rough city editor under whom I worked.

What will the internet do for truthful reporting? I don’t know. However, we adjusted (sometimes after harming innocent groups, it will be admitted) to the rise of newspapers. They performed valuable service to the rough democracies rising in the western world. Mobs and political machines learned to fear the written word.

The trick today is sorting the wheat from the chaff, finding reputable news sources. Print newspapers are a good place to start.

 

Two Flags and a Bible

In my childhood summers, we enjoyed swimming and playing games and freedom from the routines of school. In my particular church, “vacation Bible school” was also one of the summer’s activities. The sessions included Bible stories but also fictional stories to illustrate themes and morals. We had crafts and games, as well as refreshment time, always a favorite. Basically, my memories of those times were pleasant.

The beginning activity was gathering and marching into the auditorium behind two flags (Christian and American) and a Bible. We pledged allegiance to all three. It was a time of Cold War animosities, of Europe threatened with communist takeover. We knew the Soviets as enemies of Christianity. Easy to place America as right up there with church and Bible. After all, persecution of the church was real in some Soviet aligned countries.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve become more careful about where I place my country. That country has always been important to my family; many close relatives served in the armed forces, including my brother. Yet, my country, much as I love it, is not Christianity.

I think Christians have always been called to be good citizens of the countries in which they live, as was the early missionary, Paul, calling on his Roman citizenship to alleviate persecution.

However, serving country is not the same as serving God. America is not God. The temptation to worship other than God is a constant danger for Christians. America, however, is not a “Christian” nation. We revere our founding fathers and mothers, but some of them owned slaves. Some treated their workers poorly. Yet, one of the blessings of America is that we can change when confronted with wrong ways of doing things. That begins with loving and serving our country, but not to blindly worshiping it. No nation is completely “Christian.”

Joy of Escape Reading

We choose books to read for many reasons: we like other books written by this author; a person with similar tastes suggests it; reading a review convinces us we’d like it; we want to learn about a particular subject; the book attracts us while we look through a shelf of suggested books at the library.

I thought about this kind of choice when I happened on a cozily familiar book about a family mystery in a British town home in the late 1800’s. For some reason, novels set in this time period attract me when I want escape reading. I checked out the book from our neighborhood library (a blessing of life surely is a nearby library.)

Perhaps it’s because the late 1800’s in Britain were fairly predictable for a good many people. Certainly, for Victorian poor as well as some subjects of the British empire, life was less than ideal, even horrible Yet the period breathes more order than many other periods—especially when seen from the years of the world wars, the Great Depression, and the nuclear age. It’s escape reading. I know that. Certainly I don’t want all my reading to be of this variety.

Nevertheless, as pure escape, it beats a good many other pursuits sometimes done for escape: eating too much, shopping, watching too much TV, for examples.

OK, it’s after supper. My husband and I are settled in our chairs. I’ve read the news items about election politics, Near East conflicts, and Russian aggression. Earlier, my husband and I played Scrabble, so we’ve used our minds a little.

I can pick up my shallow novel and escape with a clear conscience.

 

My Tourism Experiences in Saudi Arabia

The New York Times, Wed, June 5, 2024: “Surprising, Unsettling, Surreal: Roaming Through Saudi Arabia,” by Stephen Hiltner.

In this article for The New York Times, Hiltner recounted his recent travel in Saudi Arabia, alone and without a driver. His journey appeared fascinating, beginning with the historic district in Jeddah. One of the first sites after Jeddah was the UNESCO World Heritage site in Hegra, with its rock-built structures.

Another stop was the Sharaan Nature Reserve, where the author slipped though a narrow canyon into a vast open plain surrounded by cliffs.

The author’s journey reminded me of my own tourist activities when I worked for the State Department in the U.S. Consulate at Jeddah. The atmosphere surrounding us then was quite different from Hiltner’s.

I remember eating in a Jeddah restaurant with fellow women friends, safely away in the “family” section. Afterward, we took refuge in a rug shop to await the end of prayer call, which was strictly observed.

Tourism, then, was not encouraged as it appears to be today. On one day’s outing, exploring the countryside with a group of friends, we of course steered clear of the forbidden city of Mecca, stopping to have our photos taken by the sign forbidding all travelers except Muslims into that city, before we traveled elsewhere.

We stopped and rested close to a spot where some boys were playing games. They closely examined us as we picnicked. No restaurants in the rural areas, of course, at least not open to women. We never saw any girls playing outside, either.

For rest that night we returned to our own homes on the consulate compound in Jeddah.

I recall another trip during that time, this one with my future husband for a jaunt out of town to hike along some dry creek beds. We left the car to hike and returned to find that someone had stolen the lug nuts off our tires. What to do? Wait for friends to note our absence and send out a search party? That was the one time I had neglected to follow the usual practice of letting friends know were we were going. If we didn’t return, no one would know where to send out that search party.

Fortunately, several Aussie families appeared on their own trip and went for help, taking Ben to find the necessary lug nuts in a gas station in a nearby town.

Today, any trip we took to Saudi Arabia would probably be with a tourist group. I’ve become a bit more cautious with experience.

Mandatory Christianity

When I began my education in a typical public school of the time, at least for the southern U.S., Bible reading was often a part of the school day’s beginning. I can’t say I remember much about those readings or whatever comments the reader, usually the teacher, might have made.

My family was actively engaged in a local church. The church became a major part of both my religious and social life as I grew. My Christian faith developed within my family and that local church. Evangelism in the community was carried out by individuals reaching out to friends and neighbors, as were welfare activities as well, such as food pantries open to all.

Personally, I’ve concluded that making the Bible a mandatory part of the school curriculum would result in a watered-down kind of religion, not at all helpful in spreading the good news of Jesus.

I remember several years in Muslim majority countries, where Islam was a part of national life. In some cases, no other religion was allowed. Religious observance appeared to me to be a rote exercise, without much personal meaning.

Those experiences turned me off from supporting any kind of state religion. The U.S. Constitution’s prohibition of a state-sponsored church is, in my opinion, one of its wisest sections. I think it’s also one reason Christianity, being chosen voluntarily, has seen seasons of great growth throughout the centuries.

I believe Christians should have the right to worship in any country. I also believe in freedom of worship for all recognized religions in the United States. That means also that no religion is officially favored.

If you want to ensure that Christianity or any religion loses its vibrancy, make it a state religion.

Jumping the Traces

Several decades ago I jumped the traces and left a boring job that paid well to take a job I loved dealing with historic preservation that paid less well. It was a wonderful trade.

Returning from an enjoyable conference connected with that job, I answered a call from a U.S. State Department representative with a job offer to join the U.S. Foreign Service. A couple or so years before, still in that first boring job, I had applied to join the Foreign Service. Nothing had happened, and I went on to take the historic preservation job. Now I no longer wanted the FS job—or thought I didn’t.

In answering the representative’s call, however, I told her that I would accept the invitation to join the Foreign Service. To this day, I’m still not sure of all the reasons that I, in a split second, changed my mind and agreed to this obviously major life decision. I can only say that I am so glad I did. Those years serving my country in the Middle East and other places opened my life to invaluable experiences and growth.

I’m not necessarily encouraging split second decisions that change one’s life. In my case, going back as an adult to study subjects that had always interested me but I hadn’t yet explored helped prepare me for that decision.

My spiritual life figured into that decision as well. I had never given up peppering my prayer life with the earnest desire that God would lead me to a better way to spend the life he had given me, with all of my loving family members, friends, educational experiences, and spiritual growth. I was blessed with friends’ support and time together during all of the searching.

I have an idea that this kind of continual, day-to-day journeying, study, and openness to what life brings is necessary to live the life God intends for us.

What’s a Public Servant?

Servant: “A person who performs duties for others” is one definition according to the Oxford English Dictionary. A definition of a public servant: “A person who works for the state or for local government.”

Since the dawn of prehistory, conquerors have taken over other people and recruited slaves and servants from the defeated population. As civilizations became more advanced, the elite classes made slaves and servants of the poorer classes. A servant was definitely an inferior. Few chose servanthood as an occupation.

Then a teacher named Jesus knelt before his disciples, took off their sandals, and washed their feet as a common servant. After this act of servitude—slavery even—he said, “You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.”

Jesus, called Lord of the universe by his followers, became a servant and called on us to do the same. Eventually, we understood that all our vocations—king, president, merchant, clerk, car mechanic, doctor—whatever we are called to do—are the means of serving others. A new idea was born, that government does not exist for its leaders but for the sake of the governed, whom their leaders serve.

Jesus stood on its head the usual way of doing things. But then he did this from the very beginning. The king of the universe opting to come as a helpless baby? And not in Rome or Athens, either. Not even venerable towns like Carthage or Alexandria. He came in a backwater Judean stable to a peasant woman. Who would have thought? Surely, it took God to think up that one.

My College Protest Days

A long time ago, I took part in a college protest. I’m not proud of it. It wasn’t about civil rights or government policies or anything important.

We walked out of the college cafeteria in protest of the meals we considered less than they should be. Think of that. Across the land, students were protesting Vietnam and segregation and foreign policy. We were concerned that the food didn’t taste that great.

Our political processes should always be under our scrutiny. Protests are a right of Americans, but I think they should be far down on the list of civic responses. I am against activities which shut down schools and civic institutions. I accept that I may be wrong. After all, some may point to times when protests led to changes. However, other ways also have led to changes.

I joined the walkout of my college years, quite frankly, because they were fun. If nothing else, they did bring us together. We were part of a group, and the actions gave us a sense of belonging. Of course, street gangs may give their participants such a sense of belonging.

I suggest that college students seriously concerned about Palestinians, or literary freedom, or other issues favor something I might call “teach-ins” or “learning days.” The idea is to set up safe places where students and others who are interested can share ideas. The rules would forbid harassment or destruction of property.

You could name it respectful learning, including a large dose of respectful listening.

Unfortunately, He Became Successful

Many a good person, movement, or religion has been ruined by success.

Success can be a worthy reward for hard work and creativity. Success can grant influence and even power to a person (or a movement or a civic group). Without careful shepherding of that power, however, it may become destructive pride.

A fancy name for this transformation is “hubris,” too much self confidence. The Jews knew the proverb that says “pride goeth before destruction.”

In one of his talks, Christ said, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”

Meek? That’s a word we associate with a low-life, modeled by Uriah Heep in Charles Dickens’ novel, David Copperfield.

However, a French translation of meek uses the word debonair, more likely to mean courteous or cheerful. Successful people who are meek know their success doesn’t mean they are superior to others. It means they are blessed. Further they understand their calling to use their blessings to bless others, not use them as things.

Americans are tempted to hubris. The United States has done exceptional things over the years, like giving opportunities to refugees and allowing space for small entrepreneurs to create. Yet some things in our history should not have happened, like slavery and serious inequality between the wages of workers and owners.

Too much hubris and nations decline. Religions go through a cleansing, like Christ cleansing the temple.

People who assume they should be at the head of the table, may be called out to sit at the foot.

A Child of the Library

When I was growing up, my mother and I would go “downtown” to shop. That is, my mother would shop in stores, and I would head for the public library to shop for books to check out. That began my close and never-ending relationship with libraries.

Later when I worked for a few years in that same downtown, I tended to spend many of my lunch hours reading books in the library I had visited as a child. Then, as I visited libraries in other cities where I lived, the library remained an important part of my life. That included the closest one to my home.

Today, the divisions between Americans have found their way into our libraries. We quarrel as to which books should be in our libraries, especially in the children’s sections. The strong divisions between adults now include divisions as to what children should be allowed to read about the topics that so divide older Americans.

Nevertheless, keep in mind that public libraries, free to all, rich and poor alike, are one of the western world’s great inventions. May they always be a free resource for the community. May everyone know the pleasure and worth of being able to read and have resources from which to read and learn.

Perhaps a better way to handle controversial issues is for parents and children to begin early to discuss books. A visit to the library can mean helping young children find books that interest them as well as setting up discussions about different books the child chooses and why they like them. The parent should keep in mind that eventually, of course, a child will grow to an age where they will be able to read whatever they choose. If parents spend time with their children when their children are growing, the children will most likely carry what they have learned and practiced into their teenage and adult years. At some point, they must be trusted to make their own choices.

The ability for parents and their children to freely discuss any topic and search for information about it can become a wonderful contribution to raising those children. It also can allow libraries to become places of enjoyment and learning, as it was when I was growing up.

New Journey Fear

Sometimes when things I’ve prayed for actually happen, I’ve found joy, of course, but I’m also surprised by the fear that lurks as well. This was the case when I finally realized my dream of starting a journey to a new job allowing me to work and live in a foreign country, something I’d wanted to do since I had read books in my childhood about other countries.
A diary I kept of my first overseas travel shows my ambivalence:
“Picture, if you will: I’m checking in at JFK Airport for the first international flight of my life. They are asking me things like:
‘Who packed your luggage?’ ‘Who does your luggage belong to?’ ‘Has your luggage ever been out of your sight?’ ‘Has anyone given you anything to take with you?’ I decide the encouraging letter my Christian friends gave me before the journey is not the sort of thing they are talking about and refrain from mentioning it.
“The questions do not allay the nervousness I’m beginning to experience—my stomach feels funny . . .We board the plane. The pilot announces that we are going to be delayed by ‘slight’ maintenance problems. I wish he would be more specific. Then again, maybe I don’t.
“Finally, we take off. . .. I cannot see anything except a tiny bit of the wing . . .I remember being told that the tail section is the safest place to be.
“When we are safely airborne, the pilot comes on to announce that we are going to be in Frankfort one-half hour sooner than planned because of a hyperactive jet stream. That, he says, is the good news. The bad news is that we will experience some turbulence.” Both predictions prove true.
Looking back over my diary now, I think about what lay ahead. Fortunately, it included a safe trip all the way to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, my first Foreign Service post. I did manage to pick up the wrong luggage at one of the stops on the way. We corrected this, not only to my relief, but no doubt to the relief of the woman whose luggage I had mistakenly grabbed (it was the same color as mine.) She was coming to visit her husband in the military, preparing for the Desert Storm invasion of Iraq.
This happened to be right before the beginning of that first war with Iraq in 1990. Needless to say, it proved to be an interesting time to be in Saudi Arabia. Thankfully, I made close friends and grew in my Christian faith during this time. Believe me, I did grow.
Looking over that time now, I think about the saying attributed to Otto von Bismark: “There is a Providence that protects idiots, drunkards, children and the United States of America.” Providence certainly protected the child that was me and my need to learn and grow, despite my childish ignorance.
I think I can say that for me following what I believed to be God’s will has ranged from enabling to terrifying to, ultimately, a newer understanding of grace and care.
Because I really needed that grace and care.

Only White Men

April 4, 1949: NATO

The founding of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is surely one of the world’s successes. After the carnage of centuries of warfare in Europe, European nations and the United States bound themselves in an association of mutual protection. Now, instead of wars among themselves, Europe and the U.S. have enjoyed decades of peace and economic growth.

However, much has changed in other ways, bringing us new challenges.

Examine the picture of eleven people surrounding President Harry S. Truman as he signs the Washington Treaty, forming NATO. Every one in the picture appears to be a white male.

Today such a picture would surely include women and non-white representatives. The left out people today are more likely to include those left behind by poverty, lack of family responsibility, and poor educational skills.

Much effort was invested in changing our society to allow better chances for those not represented in that treaty picture. We need efforts today in taking care of our current left out people.

Who are today’s left out? Children in desperate situations, with no caring adults. Teenagers who, for whatever reason, struggle with not belonging. Young people who need a sense of purpose strong enough to avoid drugs and ill-advised relationships. Women with young children who lack the resources to care for them. Americans who have fallen prey to easy fixes and need support to escape the drug culture.

We are one of the wealthiest nations the world has ever known. Resources to deal with our citizens’ needs is not the issue. The issue is the use of a just portion of our resources to meet those needs.

Seeking and Finding

Back in 1986, I wrote in answer to a letter from a family member:

“I seem to be suffering a lot of the same things you are, i.e., periodic depression, wondering what I’m good for and other cheerful things like that. . .

“I feel wasted. I have so many blessings, and feel I’m not doing much with them . . .I go every day to work in front of a little computer screen instead of using my writing, somehow, in this world.”

Then I mentioned the many ways I had searched for a more interesting job but had not found one.

Finally, I talked about what comforted me at that moment. In the New Testament book of Acts (chapter 16), Paul talks about how he and his companions tried to carry their missionary work to two places, but had been prevented from doing so. I commented: “They must have wondered about this time what in the world they were supposed to do. Then Paul had his vision of the man from Macedonia, and they concluded that they were being led to Macedonia. They went there and had a very fruitful ministry, albeit a challenging one.”

I continued: “I have decided to make the most of my time while waiting.” I mentioned tasks I was finishing to get ready for when I would find the work I was supposed to do.

Eventually, of course, I was able to become an officer with the U.S. Foreign Service and was able to travel and live in the Middle East for several years, which had so interested me earlier. I’m now able to use those experiences in the writing I do.

God may answer a person’s prayers in many different ways than God answered mine. Perhaps some may find a renewed interest in tasks that earlier bored them. They may find renewed possibilities, new attitudes.

The point is, I kept preparing, studying, learning. If I had died without my new vocation, the time would not have been wasted, but would have produced growth.

Jesus told his followers: “Ask and it will be given you. Search and you will find, knock, and the door will be opened for you.” (Matthew 7:7, NRSV.)

 

Sisterhood: Faith and Uncertainty

As an adolescent, I struggled with questions many young people face. What vocation was I going to choose? What kind of man did I want to marry? And, as a daughter of a church-active family, when did I know I was a Christian?

I was blessed with loving parents and an older brother, but my father, to whom I was close, died when I was thirteen. I don’t remember questioning God about why he should die. Part of my family’s life had included going to “funeral homes” and staying for a while to comfort the grieving. Visiting wasn’t particularly scary. The adults visited and reminisced and laughed a lot. Death was just a part of the community’s life.

What I missed was certainty. I wanted to know I was a Christian. Yes, I remember a time when I was nine or ten when I had a quiet but sudden “quickening,” a feeling of knowing God’s presence. Probably God comes on many of us that way.

No doubt I was influenced by growing up in an age of revival meetings. Perhaps I assumed a coming together with God had to be through a revival type experience. We Christians, believers in a future life, nevertheless are sometimes victimized by ways that moved mightily in the past but may be past their prime. We forget that Christ’s religion is forward-going. Past ways fit some but can, if we aren’t careful, close us to new ways.

Jesus met so many different people. All of them were individuals. They chose the way he preached, then went on to help others know Him. Mary and Martha, Peter and Paul, missionaries and, later, food bank operators, food servers and teachers—the list is endless, and it’s all individual in the ways we meet and serve. As Christians, we have this forward life—we have never arrived, but that is good. If we understand that we’ve never arrived, we are wary about giving complete allegiance to any human movement or allow ourselves to be stuck in past gear.

I Owe It All to Boredom

As a child, I was frequently bored. School was especially tiresome. Not all of it, of course. I enjoyed recess and music. Also lunch.

However, much of the time in my elementary school days I was bored: Listening to a rehash of things I’d already learned. Having to sit for long periods. Working out long division (without a calculator.)

I coped by daydreaming. I invented stories and went on adventures to desert islands and galloped on ponies across the prairie.

Once in a while a teacher caught me up short with a question suddenly directed at me, but most of the time they were lenient. Since my grades were okay, their wisdom must have included letting a bored child grow her imagination by drifting.

My ability to drift, to imagine, has served me well in adulthood. Working on a storyline for a novel? Just start writing, even if I have only a faint glimmer of the story, and eventually the process is likely to kick off an aha moment.

I don’t think my imagination would be nearly as developed, including my fiction, if I hadn’t often been bored as child.

Dark days of December 2023

A light can run out of fuel or electricity or the fuel can be cut off. You can break a light so that it no longer works. Light can be obscured as by a fog.

Yet, darkness never extinguishes light as long as the light is burning. Indeed light always extinguishes at least some part of darkness.

For these dark days of December 2023:

“If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,’ even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you.”
Psalm 139:11-12 (NRSV):

Christmas Isn’t Canceled

Somewhere I read that Christmas celebrations in the Holy Land will be canceled this year, due to Israeli/Palestinian conflicts. With armed incursions into Israel, not to mention bombings and terrorist events, holding mass celebrations at the usual sites of Christian remembrances may indeed be unwise.

Of course, Christians long ago burst the bounds of the Middle East. First throughout the Roman Empire, then spreading to Europe, then to newer nations and continents and to older ones in Asia, Christians have grown in number.

But the growth in numbers happens alongside the different cultures that are influenced by the lessons Jesus taught, then spread by his followers. Though coming slowly at times and threatened by human sins, slaves have been freed, the status of women improved, the poor fed, prisoners visited, and children better protected.

Surely no one can claim that we have arrived at the society Jesus wishes for, but, despite setbacks, the ways championed by Jesus long ago in Galilee, when chosen by his followers, have contributed to miraculous changes.