Merry Christmas!

Ah, it's that time of year again. I must admit, I've been so busy with our Shakespeare on Broadway production at Bridlemile I've hardly had time to reflect too much on all that lies ahead for our family around this time of year. Our tree is up, the house is decorated (inside and out, mind you!), gifts are accumulating under the boughs of the noble fir, and I have one more week of teaching left for 2007. I can hardly wait to STOP and SAVOR the true meaning of Christmas, worship the King of kings, read about three or four books I'm halfway through, and just hang out with "the fam."

Chris and I recently celebrated our 22nd and 47th birthdays, respectively. Amanda (Chris's fiance and seen in the photo above), her parents Susan and Greg, Momma June, and Sabrina's parents and her sister's family joined us for a great celebration a week ago. Charlie taught us how to play Hearts, and we had a great time together. One of the supreme blessings of this year has been getting to know Amanda more and more, and experiencing the process of merging two families together as Chris and Amanda move closer to their July 19th wedding date.

On the health front, Momma June has finished her chemotherapy for awhile, and the oncologist will make a determination after the holidays whether or not she'll need a regiment of radiation treatments. At this point, surgery doesn't appear to be the way they are headed. It seems she is getting her strength back a bit and I'm sure longs for spring and summer to come so she can get back to her flower gardening and all that she enjoys doing when the weather is better. If you would like more specifics on how she is doing physically or otherwise, I'll leave it up to you to communicate directly with her.

As for my dad, he recently received some discouraging news with his lung cancer. According to the doctors in Bend, it has spread from its origin in the pleura of the lung to the liver, pelvic region, spine, and ribs. We continue to invite you to pray for both of my parents during this difficult and often depressing time in both of their lives.

With all the mix of emotions we can feel during this time of year, especially when serious health issues are an abiding reality, I'm comforted in knowing I have a Rock (Psalm 62) to stand on during life's tempests. Recently, I dug up this encouraging and inspirational quote from Malcolm Muggeridge; it's a reminder of the significance of the Deliverer who was born a child and yet a king:

"We look back on history and what do we see? Empires rising and falling, revolutions and counter-revolutions, wealth accumulating and wealth dispersed, one nation dominant and then another. Shakespeare speaks of 'the rise and fall of great ones that ebb and flow with the moon.'

In one lifetime I have seen my own fellow countrymen ruling over a quarter of the world, the great majority of them convinced, in the words of what is still a favorite song, that, 'God who's made the mighty would make them mightier yet.' I've heard a crazed, cracked Austrian proclaim to the world the establishment of a German Reich that would last a thousand years; an Italian clown announce that he would restart the calendar to begin his own assumption of power. I've heard a murderous Georgian brigand in the Kremlin acclaimed by the intellectual elite of the world as a wiser than Solomon, more enlightened than Ashoka, more humane than Marcus Aurelius. I've seen America wealthier and in terms of weaponry, more powerful than the rest of the world put together, so that Americans, had they so wished, could have outdone an Alexander or a Julius Caesar in the range and scale of their conquests. All in one little lifetime. All gone with the wind.

England part of a tiny island off the coast of Europe, threatened with dismemberment and even bankruptcy. Hitler and Mussolini dead, remembered only in infamy. Stalin a forbidden name in the regime he helped found and dominate for some three decades. America haunted by fears of running out of those precious fluids that keep her motorways roaring, and the smog settling, with troubled memories of a disastrous campaign in Vietnam, and the victories of the Don Quixotes of the media as they charged the windmills of Watergate.

All in one lifetime, all gone. Gone with the wind.

Behind the debris of these self-styled, sullen supermen and imperial diplomatists, there stands the gigantic figure of one person, because of whom, by whom, in whom, and through whom alone mankind might still have hope. The person of Jesus Christ."

Come Thou long expected Jesus,
Born to set Thy people free;
From our fears and sins release us;
Let us find our rest in Thee.
Israel's strength and consolation,
Hope of all the earth Thou art;
Dear Desire of every nation,
Joy of ev'ry longing heart.
(Charles Wesley)