My son and I made a new bed for our youngest grandson. At two, it became time for him to graduate from his crib to a different bed. Because he is still small, the mattress in his crib was large enough for him so we decided to stay with the same size. The new bed is a simple frame around a set of bedsprings and mattress that sits directly on the floor. It is easy for him to crawl in and out of the bed. We see it as a temporary solution. At some point he will graduate to a regular single bed like his brother and sisters and this bed is a simple solution for a time of transition in his place of sleeping.

As is the case with all of our grandchildren, I try to remember bits of my childhood as a way of imagining their experiences. My memory isn’t good enough to give me much information, but sometimes I can connect with what they tell me about their lives. This is especially true of the two year old because I have very few memories of being his age. As the children grow older, I have more memories of my own experience to inform my understanding of theirs. Nonetheless, their experience is unique. They have been born and are growing up in times that are different from my time. Technology is different. Culture is different. Politics are different. Sometimes my grandchildren roll their eyes when I start to talk about when I was a child. When I pause to reflect, I can admit that they are right. My stories may occasionally inform theirs, but their experiences are unique.

In my wandering mind as I was thinking about our grandson and his new bed, I began to wonder if it might be an advantage to have a bed that rests on the floor. There is no space under the bed. I have never heard him or his parents talk about fear of monsters, but if such a fear exists or occurs, he has a bed with no room to hide monsters. Since monsters are imaginary, of course, they could dwell anywhere and the choice of furniture has little to do with the fears of childhood.

I don’t remember ever being afraid of monsters. I grew up with very few fears that I can bring to recollection. I have a vague memory of being fearful when my father was away on a business trip that something might happen and he might not get home. Nothing bad ever did happen in that way, but I learned to listen carefully for airplane sounds. He was a pilot and I learned to distinguish his airplanes from others when they flew over. Because our home was a couple of miles from the airport, and because the winds were pretty steady from the same direction in our east slope location, I knew the pattern that planes flew when preparing to land. I learned to listen for the adjustments in throttle and propeller pitch as a plane descended. I learned to look for the gear coming down on retractable gear planes. I maintain that I could tell whether my father or another pilot was flying our Beech 18 because of the way he manually synchronized the engines as he made power changes. It sounded different to me. I still look up intently and sometimes run out of the house whenever I hear a plane with multiple radial engines. A pair of Pratt and Whitney Wasp Jr. engines give me a burst of excitement and joy that reminds me of how I felt when I knew my father was on his way home.

But I don’t remember any monsters or any fear of them.

Now in my seventies, retired, and living in the Pacific Northwest, a region of the country that is relatively new to me after having lived most of my life inland, I am learning about local legends of monsters bit by bit from reading the local news, talking with locals, and seeking out opportunities to listen to local indigenous storytellers.

Our local monster is named Sasquatch. I am no expert in monsters, but I will claim this one as unique to our area because the name comes from the languages of the Coast Salish people. Sasquatch is a word that first appeared in the 1930s in the writings of J.W. Burns, a Canadian journalist and Indian agent who wrote about the Pacific Northwest. It is his version of the Coast Salish word Sesquac, sometimes spelled Sasquits. The people who have lived between the Cascade Mountains and the Salish Sea in Washington and British Columbia have told stories of a large creature that lives deep in the forests of the Cascades. The stories feature a very large creature that walks upright like a human, is covered in hair, and hides in the dark forest undergrowth. Some people call Sasquatch “Big Foot” because of stories of finding very large footprints in the mud or snow high in the mountains and deep in the forests.

We claim Sasquatch as our own and don’t want people to confuse the creature with other similar ones with different names that are reported to live in different places. Rugaru is from the Ojibway language and lives in the northern plains of Minnesota, Manitoba, and Ontario. Witiko, also known as Wendigo, is from an Algonquin word from farther east, though sometimes might share territory with Witiko. And please, despite the popularity of the maker of high end water bottles and coolers, do not confuse Sasquatch with Yeti. Yeti lives in the Himalayan region which isn’t even on the same continent.

Whatever you do, be careful in your search for monsters. Tragically two men from Oregon perished last week while hiking in the snow-covered Cascades south of here near the Oregon border. They went into the Gifford Pinchot National Forest to search for Sasquatch and became lost. A huge search was mounted, but they were found too late, having perished from exposure. Conditions can be brutal in the forest at this time of the year. Water levels are high and snow depths are setting records in some places.

I prefer not to go searching for Sasquatch. I figure that if I ever see Sasquatch it will be because Sasquatch chooses to show themselves to me not because I have found Sasquatch.

I hope our grandson takes the same approach to monsters. No need to go looking for them. It is easier to sleep if you haven’t made the search.

PLEASE NOTE: THIS IS MY LAST JOURNAL ENTRY FOR 2024. I WILL NOT BE POSTING TO THIS WEBPAGE IN THE FUTURE. TO KEEP UP WITH MY DAILY JOURNAL ENTRIES, VISIT MY 2025 JOURNAL PAGE BEGINNING TOMORROW. HERE IS A LINK TO THAT PAGE. IF YOU HAVE BOOKMARKED THIS PAGE, YOU MAY WANT TO SWITCH YOUR BOOKMARK TO THE NEW PAGE.

My father was a generous man. He taught me many lessons that I have tried to emulate and one of those is generosity. We lived in a small town of less than 2,000 people. It was well-known in our town that if someone showed up in town with a vehicle in need of repairs and no money to pay for those repairs they would likely end up at my father’s shop. Sometimes what was needed to get the person or family back on the road was a tank of gas. If they showed up at dinner time, which for us was at noon, they’d likely come to our house for a meal before traveling on. Sometimes their vehicle needed new parts or a bit of welding. It would end up in our shop with repairs being made in the most cost-effective way possible. When they were unable to pay the bill, they’d be put on the road anyway, usually with a full tank of gas and probably with a package of sandwiches as well.

One of the things that my father liked was meeting new people. He could strike up conversation with strangers. If we went on an airplane or a boat, he would always try to meet the captain and learn about how the vessel worked. He was a pilot and he was able to use his gift of talking to get us tours of cockpits of airplanes and bridges of ships. Once when we were on a family trip to Washington, DC and unable to find a parking place, he pulled into the driveway of a complete stranger and talked his way into a parking place for the day. Sometimes his desire to banter with strangers embarrassed us kids. We’d try to talk him into just being a part of the crowd, but that wasn’t his way.

He was always eager to learn new things. He tried to learn several different foreign languages and was unafraid to try his language skills even when his accent rendered him beyond understanding for native speakers. If he had one or two words, he’d try to use them.

He thought that if he liked something, it would be liked by everyone. If he was in the mood for root beer floats, everyone got one. He’d buy root beer by the gallon and ice cream by the bucketful and start making shakes. He never asked whether or not others liked the taste of root beer. I don’t think he could imagine that there were people who did not like that flavor.

He served on the boards of several nonprofit corporations and was always generous to causes in which he believed. It was through his desire to serve that he ended up representing our state at a national meeting of the Alliance for the Mentally Ill. It was at that meeting that he met Rosalynn Carter. When her husband ran to become the President of the United States most of his friends and neighbors were members of the Republican Party. He made no bones about trying to convince them to vote for Jimmy Carter, often saying that he knew two things about Carter that would make him a good president. First, he had a good wife. Second he was a farmer. That combination, he argued, was the kind of leadership the country needed. When someone protested that Carter had too little national and international experience, Dad would argue that farming and maintaining a good marriage were far more complex than international politics.

Of course my father’s appreciation for Carter went beyond his success as a farmer and husband. My father appreciated his courage standing up for civil rights. He felt a connection with Carter, who was a veteran of military service who had developed a serious vision of world peace like my dad. He admired Carter’s experience in the Great Depression and his dedication to his church, other traits they shared. Carter was the first candidate for US president who was younger than my father.

And Dad started serving Jimmy Carter sundaes. Our local creamery sold ice cream in five gallon containers and he made room in our freezer for one. Anyone who visited our house was served vanilla ice cream with peanut butter and chocolate syrup. They weren’t asked whether or not they wanted one, they were served and if they questioned the dish he’d say, “Try it. You’ll like it.”

I lost my father when I was young. He died before his 60th birthday. He died while Jimmy Carter was still in office.

I was married and ordained by the time my dad died, but I still had a lot to learn. I found myself seeking mentors who were near my father’s age. My father-in-law was an important part of my life for more years than my father had been. I also looked up to some of the leaders my father admired. Although i never met him face to face, I paid attention to Jimmy Carter who without doubt in my mind became the greatest former President in our nation’s history. When I couldn’t make sense of international politics, I turned to the Carter Center for information. When Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter volunteered with Habitat for humanity, I volunteered with Habitat. I looked up to him as a model and mentor.

A lot of years have gone by since Jimmy Carter was president and my father was alive. During that time I completed my active career and reached my retirement. One of my models for retirement has clearly been Jimmy Carter. He eschewed wealth and lived simply. Unlike other former presidents he returned to his old home after serving as President. At the time of his death a single secret service vehicle parked outside the Carter home was worth more than the house where the former president lived. I admire that style. He enjoyed his long and successful marriage with Rosalyn and always treated her as an equal partner. He served others faithfully. He was never ashamed of his faith. He taught Sunday School and worshiped with his congregation.

And now the story of Jimmy Carter’s earthly journey has come to its conclusion. There will be a lot of tributes made and stories told. My personal grief feels like the loss of a dear family friend. Somehow, I hope that I can use the things he has taught me to invest the time I have left wisely in the service of others regardless of which way the winds of politics blow.

On the fifth day of Christmas my true love gave to me: five golden rings. Despite the depiction in children’s books and illustrations of the iconic Christmas song, music historians mostly agree that the reference is not to jewelry, but rather to ringed neck pheasants. At least half for the verses in the song refer to birds as the gifts. As one who lived in South Dakota for a quarter of a century, I like the notion of ringed necked pheasants. It is the South Dakota state bird. Unlike some state birds, the bird is an immigrant, imported to the state, mostly for sport. And South Dakota and Alaska share another unique trait when it comes to state birds. Locals hunt and eat the state bird in those two places, although Alaska’s state bird is native to the state, while South Dakotans hunt and eat immigrants, who were imported in part for the sport of hunting. Try hunting and cooking a Cardinal in Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia, Illinois, Indiana, or West Virginia. Or hunt and cook a flicker in Alabama. You’ll find the response to be quite different.

However, I didn’t plan to write about state birds today. I didn’t even plan to write about the popular Christmas song. I am, however, looking forward to worship this morning when we will have an opportunity to sing several Christmas carols. It is our tradition on the first Sunday after Christmas to sing a lot of carols and we are leading worship at a small island church this morning, so we’ve continued that tradition in our worship planning. This congregation loves singing and their piano players are great song leaders. We’ll be singing with enthusiasm.

I brought up the song because I am reminding myself that it is already the fifth day of Christmas. Time is flying already! In the cycle of readings in the traditional church, there is a rush to read through the life of Jesus in the seasons of Christmas and Epiphany. Two of the shortest seasons in the Church year are dedicated to the life of Jesus. That means that each year there is a rush of Gospel readings and it always seems like time is rushing by. The readings are set up in a three-year cycle in the Revised Common Lectionary, focusing on the first three gospels: one year is Matthew, the next is Mark, the third is Luke and then the cycle repeats. Readings from the Gospel of John are sprinkled throughout all three years, with there being more in the second year because the Gospel of Mark is the shortest of the gospels. This is the Luke year in our lectionary. Luke, being the longest gospel, makes the pace of reading seem particularly quick.

There is something else that is unique to Luke. Luke is the only Gospel with a birth narrative and anything at all about the childhood of Jesus. While Matthew does have the genealogy of Jesus’ father and stories about the predictions of the birth, those readings occur during Advent. Matthew does have the story of the flight other than Egypt and the killing of the innocents, but that is a topic for another year. Luke has only one story about the childhood and adolescence of Jesus, and that is today’s story. Next week the Lectionary heads to the prologue to the Gospel of John and most congregations will probably substitute the Epiphany readings because it falls on the day before Epiphany. The story of the visit of the Magi only appears in Matthew, so that Gospel is always the reading for Epiphany. You sort of have to be a Bible geek to keep track of all of this. Today, however, the focus is the iconic story of Jesus at 12, when the Holy family goes to the temple and Jesus remains behind. When his parents realize he is not with them, they return to Jerusalem in a panic and find him in the temple with the scholars. Mary expresses her panic and concern which Jesus dismisses with a very typical teenage response, “You should have known.” Actually the Gospel reports he said, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”

This story is the only view of Jesus adolescence that appears anywhere in the Bible. While the 20th century was an intense time of discovery about the importance of child and adolescent development and the 21st Century has been a time of incredible discovery about brain development in childhood and adolescence, it was not at all common to pay any attention to childhood and adolescence in the time when the Gospels were written. Some secular writers of the time write as if children are simply miniature adults. Others simply don’t mention children in their writing. It was fairly common not to give a baby a name until they were two or three years old because of the high infant mortality rate. Better not get too attached until you see whether or not this child will survive. Children were ignored for the most part and so the simple fact that we have a single story about Jesus’ childhood is remarkable.

In my mind, the story is a dramatic illustration of just how common Jesus’ childhood and adolescence were. We enjoyed the adolescence of our children, but there were quite a few zingers, intense moments, snippy comments, and sleepless nights in the process. And now our oldest grandson is 13 going on 14 and we find ourselves heading back into teenage years. It can be an emotional battle for parents and grandparents and we find our worry and panic buttons pushed on a fairly regular basis. The report of the conversation with Jesus and his mother in the temple seems right in line with our experience. The teen acts impulsively, provoking panic on the parent’s part. Parents are deeply aware of the huge consequences of teenage decisions. The adolescent pushes all of the buttons without any awareness of how deeply it impacts the parent.

Naturally we think of Jesus from our perspective: God comes to us in human form. As we age and mature, however, we gain the ability to think of the perspective of the other. Think of Jesus from God’s point of view. God loves humans so much that God wants to experience all of human life from the inside, as a human. We get to know God as a human companion. God gets to experience the hormonal rush and impulsiveness of a teenager from the inside. And Luke reports a story of how real the experience is. It is a lot to take in. And the year is only just beginning.

The season of Christmas has always been family time for us. Today is my father’s birthday. Although he died 44 years ago, the day still brings me wonderful memories of sledding, winter touring Yellowstone National Park, swimming in hot springs, cross-country skiing, digging tunnels in snow drifts, and countless other adventures. There was always a bit of end of the year rush after Christmas with my father’s business. Inventory had to be completed. There were a few customers who needed to complete big purchases before the end of the year to make their tax computations work out. But father always had a more relaxed mood and was ready to take time off from work for fun. There always was a special cake baked by our mother. Dad’s favorite was German chocolate. There were usually plenty of pecans from Koinonia Farms. My folks ordered pecans for gifts each year and there were always enough for holiday pies and cakes at our house. We kids had pretty much tapped out our bank accounts with Christmas spending, so dad’s birthday was generally a low budget affair. I often saved enough to buy a box or a bag of candy, knowing that as soon as the gift was opened, it would be shared. Dad loved outdoor play and whether it was an old car hood towed behind a jeep or a snowmobile, he was attracted to ways to play in the snow. One winter he and the mechanics in his shop built a snow vehicle from scratch that operated with homemade tracks employing hardwood cleats, powered by a Wisconsin motor salvaged from a hay baler. It was good enough to make the trips up the mountain to measure snow depths for the Forest Service that winter.

When our children came into our lives the days after Christmas were always special family times. As pastors there was a lot of activity building up to Christmas Eve services, followed by a quiet Christmas and often a week during which there were very few demands on us as pastors. Many years we took a week’s vacation following Christmas Day. Sometimes we’d get in a skiing trip and often we’d make family visits. We continued the tradition of outdoor play with plenty of sledding and winter sightseeing.

Yesterday we continued our family celebration by traveling down to Skagit County to Mount Vernon with the three oldest of our grandchildren. We met their father for a pizza lunch and then the girls went with grandma to paint pottery at a local ceramics shop. My grandson, son, and I walked back to the Library Commons where our son is the director. While he took care of his work, his son headed off to the teen space in the library and I settled into a comfortable chair with a collection of short stories.

The Mount Vernon Library Commons is a brand new building that began to open to the public in October as construction completed. The library expanded from 12,500 square feet to more than 30,000 square feet, not counting the three floors of parking, including 76 EV chargers, located above. It contains study rooms, a new teen room with a makerspace, a conference room and commercial kitchen, and a greatly expanded children’s area with multiple play spaces.

In the teen room there is a large television with gaming consoles and video games that have been carefully chosen to encourage group play. When we first arrived our thirteen year old grandson headed to the space saying he wanted to sit in a comfortable chair. At first he was the only one in the video game area and I saw him scrolling through the game menu. When I checked back later he was playing Minecraft with another teen while several others were drawing and reading at a nearby table. A while later, I counted nine youths in the space. Four were playing at the video consoles, one was using one of the 3D printers, another was reading in a comfortable chair. More were gathered around a table.

On the drive home our grandson told us that he had had a great day. He doesn’t live in Mount Vernon and had not previously met any of the other teens, but the space made it easy for him to connect with them. Based on one afternoon’s observation, I was delighted how the library has quickly become a gathering place. One of the goals of the new building was to create a safe and welcoming environment for teens in a small town that doesn’t have many spaces dedicated to teens outside of the schools.

There is a lot to worry about for parents and grandparents of teens. These are vulnerable years. Human bodies rapidly maturing with skills expanding while brains are still developing. Teens need access to technology in a rapidly changing world. They need to have access to the Internet in order to conduct research and connect, but the Internet is a risk-filled environment. Cyberbullying wreaks devastating results. Predators lurk and lure with lies and promises. While video games teach skills later useful in such widely varied occupations as drone piloting and robotic surgery, they often can be isolating for teens who can play for years without ever meeting other players face to face.

The recent gut-wrenching tragedy of the death of actor Hudson Meek, who died at age 16 after falling from a moving vehicle is a stark reminder that teens are faced with decisions that have permanent consequences. As our hearts go out to family and friends we are motivated to draw the teens in our lives closer and to do what we are able to protect them. Navigating the journey from childhood to adulthood, however, requires increased freedom and trust. We can’t raise our children by smothering them.

As the year draws to its end, I am grateful for the expansive vision of the Mount Vernon Library Commons Project and the dedication of library staff to creating safe space for teens to gather, to play games face-to-face, to engage emerging technologies in creative ways. May it be a model for other communities for years to come.

Christmas is the busy season for pastors. As a result of the busy nature of my career, I developed several habits. Some of those habits have been meaningful and helpful for me. For example, I have learned to make adjustments to my personal schedule, including sleep with minimal disruption. That makes travel comparably easier for me than for some. Although I am generally a morning person, I thrived with midnight Christmas Eve services. For much of my career those late nights were followed by early mornings the next day. I rose to the excitement of children or the task of baking bread without feeling overly tired. I also learned to prioritize tasks. Because there are always interruptions and unforeseen crises in the work of a pastor, I learned that if the need for an extra hospital call or a longer than expected conversation with a parishioner interrupted my work, there would be some other tasks that could be shed. I often responded by adding more hours to the work day, but I also learned that doing so can make one less efficient and not more. I learned to juggle many different tasks. For most of my career I kept a cluttered desk because I was simultaneously working on multiple projects. I am now, however, a multitasker. I work best when I am focused on a single task. So rather than try to do two things at the same time, I learned to switch from one focus to the next. To this day I frequently have multiple books that I am reading in the same time period. I can switch from one to the other without forgetting where I was in either.

However, I also developed some less than helpful habits through the years. One of those less helpful habits is that early in my career I gave up on keeping up with Christmas greetings. Most years we succeeded in getting out an annual letter of greeting, but it was as late as Valentine’s Day some years. And there were years when we didn’t get our letters out at all. The thing about that habit is that I really enjoy receiving annual letters from friends and relatives. i read every one and enjoy the stories. I even endure some very bad poetry and a few writers who obsess about unnecessary details. On the whole, however, annual letters are a joy for me. And the best way to receive annual letters is to send them.

Since retirement, we have managed to get a letter out every year, though we have not always gotten the task done by Christmas day. I figure that since in the Christian calendar Christmas is a 12-day season and not a single day, if the bulk of the letters are in the mail by January 6 they count as Christmas letters. And as far as I know I’ve responded to everyone who send us a card or letter and sent out a few more than we have received.

My confession is that it is already the 27th and although there is a draft of our annual letter on my computer, I still haven’t gotten it ready to send. And, in the tradition of my pre-retirement version of a messy desk, I also have other open documents on my computer including a poem I’m preparing for an open mic event, a bibliography and syllabus for a course I’m teaching in January, the manuscript of a book project and sermon notes for Sunday. Joy of joys! I know a pastor who is taking a bit of vacation after Christmas, so I get to preach this Sunday. She told me how grateful she is to have someone to fill the pulpit and I have tried to tell her how grateful I am to have been invited.

I think that the struggle to get out our annual letter is a bit different this year. There is something about the year now ending that is a real challenge to summarize in words. 2024 has been an unusually challenging year.

I could go the route of some of those who have sent me letters who sent multiple pages of detailed news about the lives of their children and grandchildren. One of our favorite correspondents seems to have freed her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren from needing to write their own letters because she is so complete at reporting their years in her letter. Since I consider her children and grandchildren to be my friends, I eagerly read the news of all of them. As far as I know her children don’t send annual letters, at least i’m not on their list if they do. That’s the problem, I guess. I send our letter to the matriarch of the family, but not to her descendants. That style, however, is not mine. In the first place our son and his wife get their letter out on time and do a good job of reporting. More importantly, while I don’t mind sharing some of their lives with my friends, I feel that they are capable of telling their own stories to the people they choose to share with.

I suppose I could go the route of some of my peers, writing a detailed month-by-month report of activities. That would require some research on my part because I don’t remember what I did each month and I don’t keep paper calendars. However, I do have digital records and am married to someone who keeps good paper calendars. Furthermore, I have noticed that when you get to a certain age, which I have achieved, those month by month reports start to contain more and more medical history and more and more reports of funerals attended. Some annual letters we receive are mostly reports of who died and who ended up in the hospital. It isn’t quite my style.

I’ve thought about writing a poem and I have been writing a lot more poetry lately. But I am uncertain of the quality of my poetry and suspect that it lacks much. And I find that I rarely “complete” a poem. I keep wanting to make little changes each time I read it. I fear I would never finish a poem.

So, I’m sticking to the old plan, at least for this year. There will be an annual letter from our family and most of our friends and family will receive it before January 10.

When I was in the ninth grade, I sang in our high school choir. Our choir director, who was also our band director, was one of my favorite teachers during my high school years. He pushed us as musicians, introducing challenging music and teaching us about music history as we learned. I don’t remember much about our Christmas music concert that year, except that I had a sort solo. I sang one verse of a 15th century English Christmas Carol. It was a very minor part of the program. There were other students with voices more clear, precise, and better trained than mine who had bigger parts. But, like other music that I have learned over the years, the song stuck with me. I don’t remember the entire carol, but I know the first verse:

“The boar’s head in hand bring I,
Bedeck’d with bays and rosemary.
And I pray you , my masters, merry be
As many as are at the feast!”

I’ve never actually been anywhere where boar’s head was served. I’ve attended a couple of fancy dinners that had medieval feast reenactment features and at one of them there was a paper mache boar’s head complete with an apple in its mouth that was arranged on a platter and placed on the table as a decoration, but I can’t tell you what boar’s head tastes like.

I looked up Boar’s Head on the Internet and the possible recipes I found don’t sound like something we would do in our house. One possible method starts with slicing off the boar’s face and pickling it and the meat from inside the head in salt for several weeks. The cured meat is then chopped an mixed with bacon and spices and some of the meat from the pig’s shoulder which are stuffed back into the skull of the boar, It is then wrapped in muslin to recreate the shape of the pig’s head. It is then boiled for hours and served on a bed of carrots, parsnips, and onions. One recipe called for decorating the boar’s head with ash to look like the fur of the animal.

One place where they do serve boar’s head every year, although I don’t know what recipe they use, is Oxford University in England. At Queen’s College there is an annual Boar’s Head Gaudy which is a feast complete with pickled boar’s head and the carol sung by a full choir. The tradition has been going on for centuries. It started as a Christmas feast for college members who remained on campus during the holidays and now is a firmly entrenched tradition occurring on the Saturday before Christmas.

Feasting is part of Christmas traditions going back for a very long time. An archivist at the University of Oxford, Chris Woolgar, wrote a book, “The Culture of Food in England, 1200 - 1500.” It isn’t exactly the type of recipe book one might give for Christmas, and I’ve never seen the actual book, though I suppose it might be found in a library. I did, however, read a BBC piece that quoted part of the book as it reported the menu of the Christmas dinner served by Richard Mitford, Bishop of Salisbury for 97 people. On the menu was half a cow, three sheep, 24 rabbits, a pig, half a wild boar, seven piglets, two swans, two woodcocks, four mallard ducks, 20 snipes, 10 capons, and three teal ducks. that’s a lot of meat, and there was fish as well: 50 pickled herrings, 50 salted herrings, 3 conga eels, 200 oysters and 100 whelks.

You might ask, “What, no Turkey?” Well you might not ask, but for the purposes of this journal entry, I need to introduce the topic. Because we often eat turkey for our Christmas dinner. At our house yesterday, turkey was the only mean on the menu, and we had quite a feast with homemade rolls, cranberry sauce, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, yams, green bean casserole, a fruit plate, and more. We didn’t serve boar’s head.

Turkeys are not native to Europe, so the bird became part of menus in that continent only after explorers had reached Central America and returned with the birds. And turkey didn’t become a regular feature in Christmas dinners until it was made popular by the publication of Charles Dickens “A Christmas Carol,” in the middle of the 19th century. In that story the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge is shown the error of his ways by three ghosts and has a change of heart that is shown by his procuring a turkey and having it sent to his underpaid clerk for their Christmas Day dinner.

I suppose that one of the reasons we serve Turkey for Christmas is that it is easy to procure and prepare. Our Co-op grocery store takes orders for holiday turkeys a month in advance of the festivities. If we forget, it is easy to get a frozen turkey in almost any grocery store. a 15-pound turkey will thaw in the refrigerator in four days and can be cooked in a bit less than 4 hours. It will produce plenty of drippings for gravy and provide plenty of leftovers for turkey sandwiches, turkey tetrazzini, and other fun dishes. One of our favorite parts of a turkey dinner is the soup made from the leftover turkey. We like to add chunks of turkey meat and egg noodles to the soup stock. Here is where having memorized the boar’s head song comes in handy. Add a couple of bay leaves and a bit of rosemary (“Bedeck’d with bays and rosemary”).

It is all a whole lot simpler than serving Boar’s Head. Perhaps that is why you hear a whole lot more about turkey than boar’s head for Christmas dinners these days. Whatever is on the menu, of course, the best part of any feast is the people with whom you share it. The two-year-old at our table might have eaten only pomegranate had he been allowed, but the dish was hidden away from his sight. The eleven year old really enjoyed the yams, spiced with paprika and cumin. The thirteen-year-old packed away a lot of mashed potatoes, and the seven-year old went for the kiwi. Everyone seemed to enjoy the homemade clover leaf rolls made from whole wheat flour from Montana, which is a tradition of my family. But the real star of the show was the turkey. We didn’t have need of anything else.

And we have turkey soup to look forward to this week.

I am sure that part of what attracted me to a lifetime of bible study is my love of complex thought. I often would unpack various scripture passages for the congregations I served by helping them understand the historical context of those passages. In the Gospels, Jesus often quotes the prophets. While the history of the Exile would have been well known to Jewish listeners to the Gospels, it isn’t always known by members of contemporary congregations. And the history of the Gospels and their choice of emphases is influenced not only by the history of the Exile but also by the subsequent rise of apocalyptic literature in the Hebrew Scriptures. I can go on and on about the complex relationships and the many-layered nature of history,

I’ve also preached a lot of sermons about the different audiences for the four Gospels and how the choice and order of stories in each Gospel is tailored to the audience. If often took a fairly simple route to drawing meaning from the scriptures: I’d ask, “What was the situation when it was first written?” and “What was the meaning in its original context?” Then I would go on to the situation now and the meaning now.

There are, however, occasions when little or no interpretation is the best way to encounter scripture. While I could go into significant detail in my expositions of the scriptures during Advent, telling the congregation about the cultural reasons why Matthew focuses on Joseph the father of Jesus and Luke dismisses Matthew in favor of Mary. I might point out that Joseph gets no speaking lines in the Gospels, while Mary has her own song. Luke likes songs. Elizabeth, Zechariah, and Mary all get songs in Luke. I’ve been known to unpack the translation of the “Inn” in Luke’s Gospel, which does not refer to a public house, but rather the guest space in the same home as the place where Jesus was born. He was not born in a separate barn. There was a simple two room building constructed on a hillside with the upper room (translated Inn) in some versions of the gospel, a place for guests and a lower room a place for cooking, gathering, and bringing animals indoors when required. The upper room was crowded, presumably because all of the family had been forced to gather for the registration ordered by Caesar Augustus. The baby was wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger. The animals were not in the house at the time. A few verses later Luke reports that the shepherds were out in the fields with the flocks that night.

And despite the lovely children’s carol, “The Friendly Beasts,” a poor family could not have afforded a cow. And if Mary and Joseph had found a donkey, it would have been tethered outside.

But on Christmas Eve, I never went into any of those details. I simply told the story as it comes to us in the second chapter of Luke’s gospel. It is just 20 verses, easily memorized and I recited it from memory on many occasions. On Christmas Eve, we didn’t venture into complex thoughts. We allowed a few words, a few carols, a few candles, and enough time for silence to carry us to a place of awe that is beyond words. There are other times and places for unpacking the layers of meaning.

The stories come from a time in our history when people didn’t give much thought to babies. Children often weren’t named as infants because the infant mortality rate was so high that people learned not to get attached too quickly. Babies were born at home with the assistance of midwives. The men usually weren’t present for the birth. And children spent their early years with the women, until they grew old enough to work and contribute to the family. And yet, here we have stories that emphasize the naming of the infant, that speak simply of pregnancy and birth, that talk directly about the awe and wonder that accompanied the birth. These are not common stories for that time.

We know, however, that every birth is a moment awe and wonder. Whether the place is a high tech hospital or a simple home, the coming of a new life into the world always fills witnesses with awe. It isn’t just the immediate family. Shepherds and Magi were inspired to awe and worship in the stories we tell. It was as if all of the angels in heaven were singing for joy. I know that feeling. I’ve been there to witness it. I’ve been handed infants to hold moments after their birth. I’ve looked at tiny fingers and toes and into tiny eyes. I don’t have words for the wonder and awe that have overwhelmed me on those occasions.

We can, of course, analyze events after the fact. We can speak of the vulnerability of newborn human beings. We can spout theories about how the cuteness of a baby is a survival technique. They inspire love because they need love in order to survive. There are, however, times when we have no need for analysis. Christmas Eve is one of those occasions. We don’t need to unpack the story. All we need to do is to tell the story. Different people may understand the story on different levels. That is wonderfully acceptable. The occasion does not require agreement or consistent analysis. What is needed is to tell the story that somehow through simple words has been conveying awe and wonder to our people for thousands of years.

Most of the time when I led worship on Christmas Eve, I ended the service with the poetic language of the prologue to the Gospel of John. It can sound like a convoluted argument with circles about the Word and flesh and being in the world but not being known by the world. But it leads to that same sense of awe: “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.”

Acknowledging the glory is enough.

Yesterday our granddaughters were at our house making Christmas gifts for their parents and baking a few holiday treats with their grandmother. At one point their brother, who was also sharing in some of the activities, was surprised to realize that today is Christmas Eve. He somehow had gotten the days mixed up in his mind, thinking that there was one more day before Christmas. That got our family group talking about Eve. Our oldest granddaughter shares our daughter’s middle name, Eve. I said something about having a holiday that shares your name and asked her if she knew the meaning of the name.

She was quick to respond with a dictionary definition of the word eve: “I know what it means. I looked it up on the computer. Eve is the day before an event or occasion.” She was correct as far as she got. I told her that she was right that her name referred to the day before something important. But it has another meaning as well. If she had done an Internet search for “the name Eve” instead of just “Eve,” she would have found out that Eve is a Hebrew name that means “to breathe” or “to live.” It can also mean “mother of life,” or “full of life.”

We chose the name Eve for our daughter with care, even though we didn’t know her when we chose it. As our lives turned out, we were on the adoption list for a “special needs’ child. That meant that it was likely that the child we would be offered to adopt would already have been named. However, the agency called us and asked us to consider adopting an infant. They told us that she was a girl and asked if we could pick her up before noon the next day. They also told us that we would be the ones to make her official name designation. We hadn’t expected that part. So we decided to use the name that we would have used had her brother been a girl, “Rachel Eve.” It turned out to be a very good name for her.

The choice of our children’s names was heavily influenced by our experience in theological seminary. Both have Hebrew names, influenced by my studies in the Hebrew Scriptures. Our son’s middle name is the first name of a beloved professor. The choice of the name Eve as a middle name was a bit of a break from family tradition because my mother’s family had spelled the name “Eva.” Eva was the name of my maternal grandmother. However, we had intentionally chosen the most common spellings of our children’s names. We decided that having a name that came from another language might present challenges in pronunciation and spelling if we chose alternate spellings. And with Hebrew names there are a lot of alternate spellings that arise in part from the fact that Hebrew uses a different alphabet than English. Eve can be spelled, Eve, Eva, Ewa, Chavah, and several different ways in English. Alternate spellings also are applied to her first name, Rachel, which is also rendered Rachael, Raquel, Rachel, Rachele, Rachelle, Rahel, and Rahela. And if you want a longer conversation about how names are spelled, you should ask her brother how many different ways baristas spell his name, Isaac.

There is a slight play on words with the name we chose for our daughter. The name Rachel means “lamb of God,” and it is often given the meaning “Ewe,” the term for a female lamb.

I have found the multiple possible meanings of names to be part of the joy of knowing other people. I have even grown to appreciate the challenge that some people have with spelling our children’s names. My son knows he delights me by sending me photographs of the misspellings of his name. I once advised him that when a barista asked him for his name for an order he should give that person the name from their name tag. When they ask, “Really?” he could respond, “No, but I know you know how to spell that name.”

I am delighted to have a daughter and a granddaughter with middle names that have multiple meanings. I love the concept of a name that is the breath of life. In the creation story of the second chapter of Genesis, it is reported that God formed Adam out of dust from the ground and blew the breath of life (Eve) into his nostrils, and Adam became a living being. Later in the same story, God causes Adam to go to sleep and as Adam slept, God took one side from the man and made a partner for Adam. That partner was named Eve.

I could preach multiple sermons on this particular piece of Biblical history, and I have. One aspect of the stories of this part of our Bible is that they were not originally told as science. They were told as stories of the relationship between Creator and created. They were told to explain connections that defy language for expression. They have been treasured by our people for millennia and come from a particular part of our history. Knowing the history of the origins of the story can yield a deeper understanding.

On this day that we call Eve, there is always a delight for me in knowing that there are multiple people in my family’s story that share the name. My grandmother Eva, who died before I was born is a direct source of the genetics that make me. She is also one of the people whose love sparked the love of my mother which has been an enduring gift for my life. And now I have a daughter and a granddaughter who share the name Eve. They both are part of the process of bringing forth new life and carrying the love of previous generations forward into new generations.

Eve is always a joyful day for me. I approach today with joy and expectation. There is more Eve - more life - yet to come.

The United Church of Christ published The New Century Hymnal in 1995. The hymnal was the result of a long and very expensive process. Obtaining rights to print music can be very costly. The hymnal was groundbreaking in many aspects. It was, to my knowledge, the first major denominational hymnal to apply strict standards of inclusive language. Introduction of the hymnal into congregations was a mixed process. While some members welcomed many features of the hymnal including inclusive language hymns, more gospel hymns than were present in previous hymnals of the denomination, and new hymns that have become beloved, others decried the sometimes awkward changes in the words to familiar hymns, the musical range of specific hymn settings, and the lack of contemporary praise songs. Congregations making hymnal decisions often found themselves in the midst of controversy as they debated the purchase of the hymnal.

I received a new call to a congregation in 1995, leaving the congregation I had been serving in Boise, Idaho and beginning to serve a congregation in Rapid City, South Dakota. The Rapid City congregation was having discussions around the purchase of the New Century Hymnal when I arrived and those discussions continued for several years after I began to serve. The beloved Pilgrim Hymnals used by the congregation had been restored and rebound, but were showing signs of age and the congregation didn’t own quite enough to fill all of the hymnal slots in the pews. At one point in a discussion of hymnals, I observed that purchasing new hymns didn’t have to mean getting rid of the old hymnals. The idea struck home with the people and for the remainder of the time I served the congregation there were two sets of hymnals. We purchased rolling library carts to store whichever set of hymnals was not currently in use. This meant that we had to switch out the hymnals in the pews and that we could only use one hymnal in a single worship service. It was a bit awkward, but it worked for the years I served as pastor of the congregation.

One of the challenges of this arrangement was the decision of which Sunday of Advent to change the hymnals. The dilemma was simple. The red Pilgrim Hymnals didn’t have very many Advent carols in them and the black New Century Hymnals had a good assortment of traditional and new songs of Advent. the musical settings of the Magnificat were especially meaningful. However, the Christmas carols in the black hymnals were a challenge to sing because the words had been changed and people have memorized many Christmas carols, especially the first verses of carols. Our congregation preferred to sing Christmas carols from the red hymnals.

As worship leader and designer of services, I wanted to push the congregation to be slightly counter-cultural by observing Advent rather than going straight to Christmas, which is the prevailing mood in retail sales and popular culture. I also wanted to prolong Christmas to last beyond a day. In the traditions of the church Christmas lasts 12 days, but in popular culture Christmas is often set aside on December 26. As a result we usually did not change out the hymnals on the first Sunday of Advent and often we still had the black hymnals in place on the second Sunday. But by the third Sunday we almost always had changed to the red hymnals. Our congregation had a tradition of children leading worship on one of the Sundays of Advent and those services always included the singing of traditional Christmas carols. And by the third Sunday of Advent the congregation was so hungry for Christmas carols that it seemed unreasonable not to sing at least some of them. The third Sunday is Gaudet Sunday - the day of Joy - and we often sang “Joy to the World” as a closing hymn for that day.

Now that I am retired, I belong to a congregation that doesn’t change out the hymnals. However, our sanctuary has not only the New Century Hymnals, but also the United Methodist Hymnal as we share the sanctuary with a United Methodist congregation. Both congregations have access to both hymnals every Sunday which expands the options not only for Christmas carols but also for other hymns. Carols are not the only hymns whose traditional words were changed in the New Century Hymnal.

As a parishioner who no longer is involved in choosing hymns for music, I am left to sing with the congregation and my perspective on music has shifted a bit as a result. By yesterday, the fourth Sunday of Advent, I was feeling very hungry for Christmas carols and disappointed that there were none in the service. While this congregation does not have worship led by children, there was a Christmas pageant as part of the worship service for the third Sunday of advent a week ago. However, there were no Christmas carols sung during the pageant. The only children’s song that was sung was “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” which was delightful in the pageant as there was a child dressed up in a gold star costume to lead the magi to the Christ child. Still, I longed for “Away in a Manger,” “Silent Night,” and other carols that are both traditional and easy for children to sing.

Another lay member of the congregation referred to process as a ban on Christmas carols, saying that in our church the only time we get to sing Christmas carols is on Christmas day. While I know that is an exaggeration as when we worked for the church we organized Christmas Carol singing during the fellowship hour following worship, I understand the feeling. The church tends to move on quickly after Christmas, placing a big emphasis on Epiphany. That leaves Christmas and the first Sunday after Christmas as the only Sundays to sing carols, which isn’t much of an opportunity. It seems unfair to allocate four Sundays for Advent carols and only one for Christmas carols.

Fortunately for me, we have been invited to provide pulpit supply for a post-Christmas vacation of a pastor at another congregation. We’ve planned worship for December 29 at that congregation and we’ll be singing a lot of Christmas carols. While I’m a bit sad that we won’t be singing many carols at our church, I’ve been singing carols at home for several weeks. There are a lot of carols that are worth singing more than once each year.

Augustine Orviston is the main character in a novel by David James Duncan titled “The River Why.” For those of us who grew up alongside a blue ribbon trout stream and occasionally were able to make a visit to Dan Bailey’s Fly Shop in Livingston, Montana, the name is a giveaway about the novel. Orvis is a company that now probably sells more clothing than fishing gear, but when I was a kid, it was known as a source for split bamboo fly rods - a piece of fishing equipment that we knew we could not afford, but nonetheless got our attention each time we went into the store. If you have a whole lot of money and are really into fishing, you can still pay $3,500 for a fly rod from Orvis. The name, however, is a very small detail in the novel, which came out after I was an adult and a father and was quite comfortable fishing with low-priced equipment. In the book he is occasionally referred to as Gus, but most of the time the reader simply doesn’t need to know his name because the story is told in the first person.

The story is only sort of about fishing. It’s clear the the author knows quite a bit about fishing, but like another story that I have loved and quoted, Norman Maclean’s “A River Runs Through It,” fishing is only one of the themes of the book, and perhaps not the most important one. Gus’s story is really the story of love. It begins with the love of his parents and continues through his own discovery of love in his life mate. In a passage that I have often quoted, and have included in wedding services many times, Gus says, “People often don’t know what they’re talking about, but when they talk about love they really don’t know what they’re talking about. The one sure thing you can say about love is that there isn’t much you can say about it.”

Even though it has been decades since I first read that novel, I still think about that quote quite regularly. Now that I am retired after having been a minister for my entire adult life and having sorted through my books and given away two thirds of them and moved twice and tried to give away more books, there are still two copies of that book on my bookshelf. I keep the second one because I recommend it so often that I’m still at risk of giving a copy to someone who visits our home, but I don’t want to give away the copy with the dog-eared pages that make it easy to find the quote.

It seems to me on this morning of the fourth Sunday of Advent, the Sunday of Love, that it is entirely possible that I invested an entire career preaching about love - that is what ministers do - and that I really didn’t know what it was talking about. I’ve preached a lot of sermons about love. I’ve preached about love at weddings and at funerals. I’ve preached about love on the fourth Sunday of Advent for as long as I have been a preacher. I’ve preached about love on Christmas and I’ve preached about love on Easter. And, it seems, it is quite possible that I haven’t know what I was talking about at all.

In life, I’ve been lucky in love. I was born into a loving family with parents whose love I still feel in my everyday life. I met the love of my life when I was a young teenager and we went on our first date when I was sixteen years old. She, too, came from a loving family who were generous with their love and who have shared love with me. From the love we received from our families have come two children who themselves grew up and fell in love and from their love have come five grandchildren. Whether it is a two year old crawling up into my lap with his blanket or my wife tucking me into bed at night, I am surrounded by the simple fact that I am loved. It doesn’t need to be explained. It simply is.

That doesn’t keep me from trying to talk about love, however. What I know that while love can be expressed in an emotion that sweeps over one with incredible intensity, it is much more than a rush of emotion. Love is concrete action that involves self sacrifice and putting the other first. Love is expressed in generosity that gives with no expectation of return. Love is endurance over the long haul. Love can be hard work. Love can't be manipulated or faked. It is a gift. And I could continue to write sentence after sentence without really capturing love in words.

Like other elements of the Christian calendar part of the reason why we observe the Sunday of love every year is that it is something that we need to observe over and over again. We need to think about love every year. We need to focus on love all the time. We need the candle of love to burn in our hearts even when the advent wreath has been extinguished and put away for another year.

Today we light the candle of love not because we fully understand love. We light the candle not because we are able to speak about love in perfect words. We light the candle not because we are able to explain love. We light the candle not because we have captured perfect love. What we do is light the candle because we know love is real and because we know it is beyond our ability to capture. We light the candle because love is a gift - because love is THE gift.

That gift is not limited to a single Sunday or a particular season of the year. It is the life force from which we have come and which sustains us through all of the seasons and all of the ups and downs of life.

I’ll keep talking about love, even though I really don’t know what I’m talking about.

Here we are again. Today is the shortest day of the year for those of us who live in the northern hemisphere. It isn’t just the fact that I am now retired that makes me more aware of this than was the case earlier in my life. When we retired we moved from Rapid City, South Dakota, near the 44th parallel up here on the 49th parallel. The difference is definitely noticeable to us.

Today the sunrise time in Rapid City will be 7:25 am. Here sunrise will appear at 8:02. Sunset isn’t that much different: 4:18 pm in Rapid City and 4:16 here. The two locations are in different positions relative to their time zones. Nonetheless today we have 38 fewer minutes of daylight than was the case when we lived in Rapid City.

But we have made it. While the days have been getting shorter and shorter for the past six months, now the days start to get longer. It isn’t very dramatic at first. Tomorrow is only a minute different from today, but soon we’ll begin to notice that the days are getting longer. The thing about being farther north is that the rate of change is more dramatic than it is closer to the equator. Not only are the days shorter up here at this time of the year, but they are longer after the spring equinox. For half of the year we have shorter days and for the other half they are longer.

Of course there are a lot of places where the days get shorter than here. North of the arctic circle the sun won’t rise at all today. And in the summer there will be days when it does not set. And there are plenty of places where the variation between the length of days is less dramatic. Near the equator the length of days and nights is nearly the same year round.

Celebration of the winter solstice is a phenomenon of northern places. There are some pretty impressive examples of prehistoric architecture in Central America, but you won’t find anything like Stonehenge there.

Another thing that is interesting about having moved farther north is that the variation in the location of the sunrise during the year is pretty dramatic. Since we live on the west coast, we are a bit more aware of sunset than sunrise. There are high mountains to the east of our home and so sunrises are less dramatic than was the case in some other places where we lived. But the sun sets over the ocean here and so we get a good view. This time of year the sun sets in the southwest. In the summer it sets in the northwest. It isn’t quite a 90 degree variation, but it is pretty close to it. That change in the position of the sun is part of what makes Stonehenge so remarkable. At just a bit past the 51st parallel, Stonehenge sits where the winter solstice sun rises at a 90 degree angle from the location of the summer solstice. The huge monument, which took hundreds of years to built is aligned so that the light from the sun falls between specific stones at each solstice.

Archaeologists and historians believe that ancient Britons held ceremonies at Stonehenge both at the winter and summer solstices. These days, people still gather in large numbers to view the solstice sunrises at Stonehenge. We had the privilege of visiting Stonehenge many years ago, but our visit was not on a solstice and we were there mid day rather than at sunrise. Although the huge rocks were impressive, I didn’t understand all of the nuances of their placement at the time. I’m not that big of a fan of crowds, so I probably wouldn’t make the trek to Stonehenge just to see the sun rise through the stones even if we lived much closer to the monument. These days, however, I can watch a video recording of the sunrise over the Internet.

Perhaps it is the result of being retired and having a bit more time to ponder things like sunrise and sunset, or perhaps it is part of the process of having moved a bit farther north, but I am much more aware of the emotional and spiritual impact of the length of days than I have previously been. There is a lot of information available about seasonal affective disorder on the emotions of people. I’ve known for a long time that the short days are more difficult for some folks than they are for me. I have many friends and acquaintances who travel south for part of the winter because they find the short days to be depressing. Others learn to live with and manage their depression while living through the darker days of winter. I seem to be less susceptible to seasonal depression than others, but I do find myself looking forward to longer days. I can understand why folks living in the north have developed traditions of special celebrations to mark the solstice. It also makes sense why the Christmas celebrations in the church became more common and popular as Christianity spread northward from the Middle East. Easter, which appears on the calendar in relationship to the spring equinox, was the most important holiday of the year in the early centuries of the church. Christmas celebrations began to appear about 300 years after the birth of Jesus and Christmas began to equal Easter in impact around 600 AD. In modern times Christmas has surpassed Easter as a holiday in many congregations.

However observed, I am pleased to have made it around the sun one more time and am looking forward to longer days in the months to come. I’m not a very good sleeper, so I probably won’t sleep less when the days get longer, but I think that I am more productive when the days are longer. I’ll find more time to work in the garden, tend the bees, and do other outside activities when the days are not only longer but also warmer.

Solstice celebrations at our home will be muted, but the day is duly noted and I’m looking forward to longer days to come.

Last summer as part of a series of medical tests, I had an MRI performed. I had been around MRI machines before. I knew a bit about them because both of our children have had MRI procedures performed and we had an active church member during our time in Rapid City who was a technician who serviced and repaired diagnostic imaging machines for hospitals and other health care institutions who enjoyed talking about his work at least as much as I enjoyed hearing about it. But I had never before needed such a test. Nonetheless I approached the procedure without fear. I carefully read the instructions, took the prep pills at exactly the right time, arrived at the imaging center on time and changed into the hospital gown. The attendants were professional, skilled, and kind and soon I was on the table ready to go into the machine as they once again explained what was going to happen. Then they asked me a question that I didn’t expect. “Would you like to listen to music while the procedure proceeds?” That sounded like a good idea to me, so I answered that I would. Then they asked what kind of music I would like to hear. I had to hesitate on that one. I like a lot of different kinds of music. However, since I would have to lie still for the procedure, I thought that maybe it would be better to not have music and just meditate, but not expecting there to be music and faced with the need to decide, I requested classical music. It turned out to be a good choice for me and the procedure was conducted without problems and yielded the results I and the doctor needed.

It probably won’t come as a surprise to folks who know me that I didn’t choose country music. It isn’t that I don’t like country music. I do like a lot of country music. I was a country music DJ at a radio station for several years in the early 1980s. Sometimes I find country music to be a bit manipulative of emotions, but a brilliant pianist, a steinway grand, a symphony orchestra, and a Tchaikovsky piano stirs my emotions, too. I’ve been brought to tears by cello concertos. But I find country music to toe tapping and dancing more than lying very still so that a machine can make clear medical images.

We served in a rural and isolated county in North Dakota from 1978 to 1985. We were job sharing so there was time for me to DJ at a small market radio station on the side. During the time we lived there family farms were in crisis. Mortgages overwhelmed hard working families and farm corporations bought out struggling farms resulting in fewer people working the land, which meant fewer customers for local stores and fewer students in local schools. During the time we served the county decreased in population at a rate higher than had been the case during the Great Depression. I knew first hand what the Farm Crisis was all about. When Bob Dylan commented about the crisis facing family farms at the Live Aid Concert in 1985, he got my attention. When Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp, and Neil Young organized a Farm Aid concert, I thought it was a good idea. I don’t know if anyone seriously thought a single concert could solve a huge crisis, but I doubt that the original organizers were fully aware of the complexity of the problem of the state of family farming in the US. The concerts became an annual event and a huge organization has sprung up.

Since I rarely listen to country music these days, I suspect that it was in conjunction with a Farm Aid concert that I first heard Brooks & Dunn sing “Only in America.” It would have been sometime in the early 2000s when we lived in South Dakota. Although the song shares a kind of simplistic, cheesy, faux patriotism with other country songs, it does have an inspiring and uplifting set of lyrics. The first verse is about a city school bus driver looking in the mirror and imagining the dreams of the kids on the bus. The second of a couple of newlyweds in the back of a limousine imagining their future. The chorus repeats “Only in America” and promises big dreams, everyone getting a chance, everyone getting to dance.

Big dreams may not be exclusive to America as the song touts, but I have the refrain in my mind this morning as I write having just read about the brinkmanship of the incoming president and his wealthy advisor trying to manipulate congress as bills fail to pass to fund the government in the US congress and the deadline looms. A government shutdown is a very real possibility. It has happened ten times since the first shutdown during the Regan Administration 40 years ago. Only in America.

Seriously, only in America. Brazil recently reached a budget impasse but managed to keep the lights on. European parliamentary systems might refuse to pass a budget, but it would trigger a new election, not a stoppage of national parks, tax refunds or food assistance programs. That is what happened in Canada in 2011. The government continued to function while elections where held. Around the same time Belgium didn’t have an elected government in power for most of two years, but the government continued to function. Ireland more recently had a minority government, but government funding continued because parties not in power agreed to support spending bills.

Only in America do battling political parties use the day-to-day functioning of the government as a bargaining chip, and even a threat, to extract demands from the other side. Only in America are we facing a government shutdown at midnight tomorrow if a temporary funding bill is not passed. After all, passing a bill with the narrow majorities in the federal legislature requires compromise and compromise is not something our politicians seem willing to do these days.

Kids will still dream on school buses and couples will still dream on their wedding day, but Only in America can a president-elect who has not yet been inaugurated and a tech billionaire turned politician motivated by the promise of even more tax breaks, precipitate a government shut down in order to demonstrate their intention of near autocratic authority. Of course neither of them will run short of cash during a shutdown. Only in America.

If you have read this far, you can see why I didn’t ask for country music when I had my MRI.

Yesterday we were wrapping a few Christmas presents at our house. I like wrapping presents. It appeals to my sensibilities to cut just the right amount of paper, cover the gift neatly, making folds in just he right places, and attach a label with the name of the recipient. We’re pretty frugal when it comes to wrapping paper. We keep all of the unused scraps of paper. When pieces are too small to fit on a roll, they are neatly folded and placed in a box. I pride myself in being able to sort through those smaller pieces of paper to find one that is just the right size. When I have enough time, which is pretty much the case all the time now that I am retired, I get out a ruler and measure the box I am going to wrap so that I can measure and cut just the right amount of paper without waste. Our supply of Christmas wrapping paper is quite short this year. We haven’t purchased any new paper, so what we had was leftover from last year. One gift has one paper pattern on the top and bottom and another pattern around the sides. I think it looks pretty good that way. At one point, Susan was ironing used paper so that it would look flat and neat when used to wrap a present. If paper has a small tear as often happens, I carefully repair it on the back side before putting it on the gift. I joked with Susan yesterday that what we save on wrapping paper we spend on tape.

Of course, it isn’t about money in the first place. Wrapping presents brings so many memories to mind for us that we enjoy the process. Still, we don’t want to be wasteful of the resources of our planet. We are careful sorters of the waste that leaves our house, making sure that we recycle as much as possible. We have access to the farm for composting materials that can be quickly turned into productive soil. We subscribe to a custom recycling service that recycles items that cannot be recycled through our area’s curbside recycling program. We do our best to send to the landfill the smallest amount possible.

One of the pieces of good fortune in our lives is that we have wonderful memories of those who lived through the Great Depression of the 1930s in the US. Our parents came into their teens during the depression and entered adulthood as its aftermath was playing out in the lives of their families. They learned to be frugal. One of my treasured Christmas memories is of my Great Uncle Ted, for whom I was named, quietly sitting in a chair unwrapping his gifts. He was a master knife sharpener and taught me the craft. He always had a very sharp pocket knife with him. He would carefully slice through the tape and unwrap the present without tearing any paper, then neatly fold the paper so that it could be reused. I thought the process was unnecessary when I was a child, but now I enjoy doing the same thing when I unwrap gifts.

One year my father, who didn’t do very much shopping for our home, found out the price of wrapping paper from the dime store in our town. He declared that there was no reason to pay that price for wrapping paper and brought home a roll of paper of the type used in his store where a lot of presents were wrapped for customers. The huge roll of paper supplied our family for years and years. Christmas after Christmas most of the gifts under the tree were wrapped in the same paper. One of my younger brothers believed for a time that Santa Claus only used that type of paper and that it was how you could tell a gift was from the real Santa. As a teen, I grew weary of that paper and sought alternatives. I wrapped gifts in the color comics saved from the Sunday newspaper. I wrapped gifts in butcher paper decorated by tracing cookie cutters with colored pencils. I even went to the dime store and bought a roll of wrapping paper with my own money one year. The best source of variety, however, was the stack of used wrapping paper saved by my Uncle Ted, though even that supply grew less diverse because he also saved all the paper from the giant roll. It was by using the second-hand paper that I learned to measure gifts and seek a piece of paper that is just the right size and to piece together small scraps of paper before wrapping the gift.

Meanwhile, Susan, growing up in another household, grew used to saving wrapping paper after gift-giving occasions. The saved paper was ironed and kept for her aunt who was a school teacher in a neighborhood with lots of children who suffered from poverty. She used the second-hand paper for craft projects with the children and for the children to wrap hand made gifts for family members.

Later, when we were newlywed, we received wrapping paper from a cousin who owned several drug stores. At that time, stores were provided with display rolls of paper that were not intended to be sold. The display rolls had very little paper on them, just a thin strip to cover the cardboard tube. They were thrown away when the holiday display was taken down and new rolls would come the next year. But her cousin saved those rolls and gave them to family members to use. It takes a touch of creativity to wrap a box when the paper is narrower than the box being wrapped. I’ve spent time matching paper patterns and making seams in the paper with tape to make an attractive package.

Being frugal with paper has become a fun family tradition. We enjoy seeking alternatives to going to the store to purchase paper, though we occasionally do pick up a roll at the dollar store.

Like most of the rest of the best parts of Christmas, wrapping presents doesn’t have to be an expensive process to be a whole lot of fun.

I can remember when there were bleachers set up near the garbage dump at Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park where tourists could sit and watch the bears come to the dump to feed. Both black bears and grizzlies could be observed. In those days human encounters with bears, especially black bears were common. People would see bears alongside the road and stop their cars. Some would feed them from their car windows in order to get pictures. Some would even get out of their cars seeking more contact. It didn’t always end well. There were stories of attacks that resulted in injury and death of people. As time passed, park management became more enlightened when it came to the bears. Feeding bears at garbage dumps was stopped. The dumps were cleaned up, temporary bear-proof containers were installed for garbage that were emptied regularly and the garbage was hauled out of the park to a landfill outside of bear territory. Bears that had become accustomed to humans were trapped and transported out of the park. In one of the early experiments, my father’s company had a Piper Super Cub equipped with an antenna that could track the radio collars fitted to the bears that had been trapped. Most simply worked their way back to the park after being released. Time passed and the balance of bears became more natural. The bears returned to their usual food sources and bear sightings in the park became more rare and often more distant.

Although we lived farther from Glacier National Park, there was a similar pattern up there, where there were more grizzly bears and the encounters with people were more frequently fatal for the people. We used to joke about bear encounters. Shops sold t-shirts emblazoned “Welcome to Montana, bears 4 - people 1.” We knew that those shirts were far from accurate. Human and bear encounters often didn’t end well for bears. Bears that injured people or that raided cabins were usually hunted and killed. In those days a hunting license for bear was required for all hunters who went for deer, elk, moose, bighorn sheep, or mountain goats in our state.

There was another old joke that we told when we thought that the person we encountered was unfamiliar with bears. There are many versions. One goes like this. “When you go into the mountains you should always wear a bear bell and carry bear spray. And you should know the difference between a grizzly bear and a black bear. You don’t have to approach them, just look for their scat. Black bears eat nuts, berries and insects. You will see berries and nuts in their scat. Grizzly bear scat contains bear bells and bear spray.”

We were taught to make noise when we were in bear country so that the bears knew we were around. Care had to be taken not to get between a cub and its mother. When a cub was sighted, we backed off slowly, lookin carefully until we found the mother. In general, bears in the wild avoid human contact, so the trick is to avoid surprising one. Their hearing is often better than their eyesight. The adage that we were told, though thankfully I never had to try was that if you encountered a black bear, stand up, yell, appear aggressive and the bear will leave. If you encounter a grizzly, lie down on the ground and play dead, even if the bear sniffs, touches, or even licks you. I’m glad I never had to try out that, I’m not sure I have the discipline. We also knew that bears run uphill much better than downhill, that black bears can climb trees, and other bear lore.

Having seen black bears and grizzly bears in the wild, I’ve long thought it would be fun to travel north to see cinnamon bears, and perhaps even sight a spirit bear or a polar bear. Cinnamon bears and spirit bears are close relatives to black bears and can be seen in the province just north of where we live, though sightings of spirit bears from public roads is considered to be nearly impossible. The people I know who have seen them have seen them from boats traveling along the BC coast. Sightings are very rare.

Polar bears, however, are a different matter. They need access to sea ice to access their preferred food which is a diet of seals. It is possible to see polar bears from the Dempster highway north of Inuvik. The Dempster runs north of the Arctic Circle and is the northernmost highway in Canada. Although the highway is now open all the way to the Arctic Ocean at Tuktoyaktuk, it is unlikely that we would see a polar bear even if we did drive to Tuktoyaktuk because our trip would not be in the winter when the ocean is frozen.

Probably the place where polar bear sightings are most common is much farther south, at Churchill on Hudson Bay. The unique geography of the huge bay brings the sea ice much farther south in the winter and tourists can board tundra buggies to view the bears from a safe perch. The Bay is frozen for almost nine months each winter and during that time the port is closed down, but the airport is open and it is possible to fly in and take a polar bear tour.

I’ve been told that polar bears are curious and will approach humans and vehicles. While they can be a danger, humans being injured by polar bears is very rare. It has been more than 40 years since a human was killed by a polar bear and in that case it is possible that the human actually froze before the bear began to feed. Those seeking to recover the body were unable to approach close enough to be sure. The lore surrounding polar bears is that if you encounter one, do not run. They will chase and they can outrun a person. The trick is to calmly walk away. If the bear approaches close enough for you to touch it, pull back and give it the hardest punch in the nose you can. Polar bear noses are sensitive and they will run away. At least that is the theory.

While I would like to see a polar bear, I am no more eager to test punching one than I am to try playing dead for a grizzly. Some encounters with nature are too close for comfort for me.

I’ve been riding my bicycle almost every day since I purchased a used electric bicycle last summer. Although we have lived in the Pacific Northwest for four years now, I still haven’t adjusted to the simple fact that riding a bicycle is a year-round option where I live. All of the other places where we have lived invited putting bicycles away in the winter. Having said that, I have missed a few days recently due to the weather. Even though the electric bike makes riding in the wind much easier, I still haven’t wanted to go on long bike rides when wind speeds are high. And though I’ve taken a couple of bike rides in the rain, I’m not a big fan of that practice, either. Until I figure out windshield wipers for my glasses, rain presents a real challenge.

I’m not complaining. The weather around here is very mild and we walk outdoors every day. As someone commented to me just after we moved to western Washington, “Here we don’t have bad weather, just bad clothes.” the meaning was clear. If you have a good rain jacket, and perhaps a pair of rain pants, and waterproof shoes, you can engage in outdoor activity whenever you want. We had established the pattern of walking every day before we moved from South Dakota, but we haven’t faced the bitter cold and slippery ice and snow that we faced there.

I have been paying attention to weather reports lately because sometimes we can get in our walk or a bike ride by paying attention to what time of day the rain will come. Weather forecasts that predict each hour’s conditions are readily available on my telephone and they are fairly accurate. However, I have learned that while they are pretty good at predicting weather conditions, they are less precise when it comes to predicting what time conditions will change.

This morning, however, I read an honest weather prediction from an online meteorologist. I’ve been paying attention because another atmospheric river is supposed to move into the region today bringing heavier precipitation and a warning for possible severe flooding in certain low-lying areas of our county has been issued. Although where we live is not in a flood-prone area, I am interested in the ways in which water moves in this place that is far more wet than anywhere I have previously lived. What I liked about the weather prediction was the simple, humble confession that even the best trained meteorologists don’t know exactly what is going to happen. Meteorologist Anna Lindeman added to her prediction of heavier precipitation and breezy winds that “timing and location of the heaviest precipitation is still uncertain.”

Uncertain is a term that I don’t often see in weather predictions, even though uncertainty is surely a major component in the business.

This year promises to be a year with more snow in the Cascades than recent years. The ski resort on Mount Baker is already reporting more snow than fell on the mountain all last year and local skiers are reporting very good powder conditions. I haven’t skied since we moved and I probably won’t go back to downhill skiing as the sport of my choice despite having pursued the sport with a passion when I was younger. On Sunday, however, as I was visiting with some of the teens in our church following worship the talk was all about snow. When I asked one young man how it was going with him, he replied, “Pretty good. I wish I was skiing, however.” It turns out that he had planned to go skiing instead of going to church, but when a friend was unable to accompany him, he ended up coming to church with his family instead.

I’ve got more than six decades more under my belt than he, but I can associate with the feeling. When the snow is good it can feel like you are wasting an opportunity when you stay off of the mountain.

Skiing is a sport where global warming is immediately evident. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the number of days with snow on the ground has decreased by more than 15 days since 1955. Yes, grandchildren, it really did snow more when I was a kid than it now does. And the prediction is that the future holds even less snow. A recent study predicts that by 2050 the demand for artificial snow at ski resorts will increase between 55% and 97%. As ski seasons grow shorter, resorts are embracing technology to expand the season.

In Copenhagen, Denmark, skiers can head down the piste year round thanks to a human-made mountain covered with a green artificial ski mat. The snowless surface mimics a packed and groomed slope. Skiers and snowboarders turn out to descend the hill by the thousands. Ski resorts around the world are taking notice and investigating the possibility of installing artificial ski mats on some of their runs. The mats could be employed when there is no snow, extending the season potentially year round. When snow comes, the mats would be covered and snow skiing could resume as usual.

I couldn’t find any information about how it feels to fall on a ski mat. I’ve taken some pretty spectacular falls on ski hills over the years and have appreciated soft powder as my preferred place to fall despite the challenge of finding any dropped equipment or clothing. It seems that an artificial ski slope might be about as appealing as lying on a bed of astroturf. I suppose that the material has its place, but I doubt that I would be enticed to pay ski resort prices for a dry slope.

Whatever the future, I don’t think there will be any dry slopes around here today. Even though the forecasters can’t predict the timing, it is safe to say that it will be raining sometime today. And sometime during the day I’ll be over at our son’s place visiting our two-year-old grandson who knows what to do in the rain. I can count on him standing at the window looking outside and asking anyone who is available to don their raincoat and boots and join him outside to “Splash, splash, splash.” Who needs a ski hill when you have a grandson and puddles?

The news coming from the French island territory of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean is grim. The damage from the worst cyclone to hit the area in 90 years is so extensive that roads are blocked and communications lines are down. Rescue efforts are underway, but it will be some time before the number of fatalities can be tallied. Hundreds have died and the total may reach or even exceed a thousand. Some are predicting that several thousand will die before the crisis is over. The cyclone packed 140 mph winds and waves were over 25 feet high.

Part of the heartbreak of the tragedy is that it is yet another case of the poorest people in the world receiving the most damage and destruction of human-caused climate change. There is clear evidence that storms such as the cyclone that battered the area are more intense and more frequent because of the warming of the climate. And Mayotte is one of the most impoverished places in France. Three-quarters of the 300,000 residents of the island live in shanty towns with incomes well below the French poverty line. The high death toll is in part due to the lack of homes and other structures that are built to even the barest of minimum safety standards.

It is easy to fall into a state of grief and depression when monitoring the environment. Global temperatures rose and extreme weather became more common in the past year. Climate scientists have warned for decades that exceeding the 1.5C temperature threshold would bring catastrophic changes. 2024 was the first year in history where that temperature mark was exceeded for an entire year. Extreme weather impacts are increasing in frequency and severity.

But there have also been some breakthroughs in efforts to protect nature and the climate. There is big positive news about our planet as well as the news of devastation and tragedy.

In August the final of four dams that were in the Klamath River in Oregon and California was removed. The return of the salmon to the river was faster and more dramatic than anyone had predicted. By October fish were sighted in the tributaries of the river. The sheer number of fish and their geographic range has exceeded what biologists predicted. The removal of the dams and the return of the salmon has been the result of decades of work by members of the Yurok Tribe and other indigenous people working to replenish wild animals on tribal territories. Another environmental win for the tribe has been the program of reintroducing the California condors to native lands. The efforts which have been growing since 2008 when the first birds were released has proven to be a success with 18 of the giant birds living on Yurok territory at present and steady growth in the population. This leadership is producing dramatic results and improvements for all of us who live in the west and is providing models that can be replicated in other parts of the world.

Across the world in the Atlantic, the Azores announced a new marine protected area. When established it will be the largest in the region including 30% of the Portuguese archipelago. The area includes nine hydrothermal vents, 28 species of marine mammals and 560 species of fish. In other parts of the globe marine protected areas have been highly effective in protecting biodiversity. Currently only 2.8% of the world’s oceans are effectively protected. The Azores are setting an example for the entire world of what can be done.

Renewable energy sources are growing worldwide. In the US, wind energy generation exceeded coal-fired generation beginning in April. While renewable energy production fell slightly short of what is required to meet the UN goal of tripling capacity by 2030, the world is well on the way to having half of the demand for electricity by that time. The clear leader in renewable energy in the world is China, which will make up at least half of the world’s cumulative renewable electricity capacity by 2030. This surge in renewable energy is being driven by economics more than by governmental policy. Solar is now the cheapest option in almost every country in the world. In our personal lives, 2024 was our first full year of solar production on our home. We met our goal of producing more electricity than we consumed by a significant number. Once our solar system was installed our only cost for electricity has been the meter charge to remain connected to the grid. This allows us to share our excess production with the grid in exchange for being able to use power from the grid when our system is not producing at night and during stormy weather.

There have been major legal gains in the struggle to protect the environment. Back in 2021, the Ecuadoran government issued a landmark ruling stating that mining in the Los Cedros cloud forest violated the rights of nature. The legal status of natural ecosystems has been recognized in many places since that historic decision. The Machangara River is now protected in Ecuador and a growing number of natural features around the world gained legal status in 2024. In New Zealand the peaks of Egmont National Park were recognized as ancestral mountains. They were renamed Te Papakura o Taranaki and jointly have been granted personhood status according to New Zealand law. In Brazil the ocean has been granted the right to exist, regenerate, and restore. Whales and dolphins have been granted legal rights to exist and live in treaties promoted by Pacific indigenous leaders.

Deforestation in the Amazon basic has reached a nine-year low, falling by more than 30% in 2024. Vast areas are still being destroyed, but this year marked the lowest annual lost of rainforest since 2015. This was accomplished despite historic drought and a huge increase in fires in the Brazilian Amazon.

A major study of conservation initiatives this year demonstrated that conservation measures are effective in slowing and even reversing biodiversity loss. Nearly 2/3 of all efforts included in the study showed positive effects.

There will continue to be significant loss and people will continue to suffer in many places, but progress is being made. Change is coming despite setbacks. Other countries of the world are providing leadership that our country will follow. And for those of us committed to positive change, seeing results restores our hope and renews our energy.

The days are very short in our part of the world at this time of the year. I don’t think I suffer much from seasonal affective disorder, but I know the short days and long nights have an effect on me. We have had blustery weather for a couple of days and I have chosen in the midst of the busy activities of preparation for Christmas, a week with a lot of family activities, and high winds and rain, to forego my usual bike ride for two days now. Since my usual is to ride every day a couple of days off isn’t significant in the big picture. After all we have been able to get out for daily walks despite the busy days and blustery weather and I’ll be back riding my bike soon. I got a new bike in July and I’ve put over 2,000 miles on it, so I’m not worried about a couple of days of break.

I know, however, that allowing myself to spend more time inside and being less active is not helpful when it comes to my mood. It is a concept that is well known in places where the winter days are short. The Scandinavians have a concept called “friluftsliv.” The word might be translated “open-air living.” Henrik Ibsen, the Norwegian playwright and poet, made the concept popular in the 1850s by describing the value of spending time in remote locations for spiritual and physical wellbeing. Just going outside and spending time with nature can make a big difference in one’s enthusiasm for life and energy levels.

I suspect that there is a relationship between the flow of the seasons in the northern hemisphere and the structure of the Christian calendar. The truth that is expressed in secular concepts such as friluftsliv is in some ways built into the flow of days for Christians. Today is known as Gaudete Sunday. The third Sunday of Advent stands in contrast to the other days of the four-week period of preparation for Christmas. The feast day has an interesting history. Advent is not the most ancient of Christian traditions. The early church focused its attention on Lent and Easter as the main holidays of the Christian year. The celebration of the birth of Christ at Christmas began hundreds of years after the death and resurrection of Jesus. Originally Christmas was added as a second opportunity for receiving new members. Like Easter, a six-week season of preparation including prayer and fasting was instituted. This was later shortened to the four weeks we now observe.

Advent preparations have often been somber in the church. There is an expectation of personal reflection, prayer, and fasting in preparation for the coming celebration. But right in the middle of Advent comes Gaudete: a day of feasting and celebration. The worship for today in traditional churches begins with a reading from Philippians 4: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” (Philippians 4:4-6). The next verse is the traditional benediction for the day, “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Philippians is an interesting letter that has a prominent place in New Testament literature. The letter, written by Paul from prison is very upbeat. The word “rejoice” (“gaudete” in Latin) appears 17 times in the letter. On the surface, it might be seen as the opposite of the nordic concept friluftsliv. Instead of going outside to find a sense of joy and purpose, Paul was confined inside of the prison. And yet he allows his spirit to roam free in the letter to the Philippians. Our traditions invite us to read this letter in the midst of Advent preparations in part to draw a contrast to the general tone of the season. In the middle of a season of somber preparation, we are invited to have a feast day.

In traditional liturgical congregations there are three purple candles in the Advent wreath and one pink one. Today is the day we light that pink candle. It is a day to rejoice. In congregations that are a bit less formal in their observances there might be four purple candles. Blue is also a color of Advent and in other congregations all of the Advent candles are blue. There are a lot of Christians who haven’t learned about Gaudete Sunday. Recently we led worship in a small island congregation on the first Sunday of Advent. The layperson chosen to light the first candle didn’t know about the colors and instead of lighting a purple candle lit the pink one. It was the candle closest to her. Another member extinguished the pink candle and lit a purple one during the hymn that followed and nothing was said about it during the worship service. Afterwards, we laughed about the candles observing that sometimes you just can’t contain the joy and it slips out before you intend. I love the informal joy of that congregation. No one needs to get upset if everyone doesn’t remember all of the traditions or observe the season in the same way. The joy of being together and supporting one another is more important than the stuffiness of tradition.

Since Christianity is a worldwide religion it is important that in half of the globe this is not the season of long nights and short days. In the southern hemisphere it is the other way around. They are approaching the longest days of the year. It is the middle of summer for our friends in Australia, South Africa, and other southern places. The symbols of candles carry different emotional connections for them.

Wherever on the planet we find ourselves it is important for us to remember that despite grim predictions, deep sadness, ever-present grief, and overwhelming loss, we are capable of expressing joy. It is the Easter message of our faith. Love is stronger than death. There is cause for joy in the most somber of seasons.

May you discover joy today.

A story that was recently told to me:

A man came into the library with his children and proceeded to ask for a specific book. The librarian was familiar with the book because it was a new acquisition an quickly found it and gave it to the man who proceeded to some comfortable chairs an began to read it to his children. Shortly afterward the librarian noticed that as he read he had tears streaming down his cheeks despite the big smile on his face and his determination to continue to read the story.

The librarian had had enough conversation with the man to know that he was familiar with the story. He had previously read a different version of the story to his children. Reading to his children was a regular practice in their home. He checked out the book and it was going home with them for more reading. It was, after all, a chapter book that is too long to comfortably read in one session.

I found out that emotional reactions to books are common in libraries. However, the story behind this reaction doesn’t commonly elicit such a strong response.

Of course, there is more to the story. The reason the librarian was familiar with the book and the reason that the book was new to the library’s collection is the language in which the book is written. It was one of the new additions of Russian language books to the library. The library already had extensive English and Spanish language collections in both adult and children’s literature. There are thousands of books in each section of the library in both of those languages. Like other libraries, the library had engaged in active conversations with its community and had learned of the desires of some of the people in its service area. In the community of this particular library there is a substantial number of relatively new immigrants from Ukraine and there are many families who speak Ukrainian or Russian in their homes. Most of the families, like the one that came into the library, also speak English, but being new to the country want to pass on some of the traditions of their past to their children.

The story is one of the reasons why we make regular donations to the library foundation. It is one of the reasons we are so eager to support public libraries. Libraries are in the business of forming and supporting community. They are a vital part of the support system for new families in the community - a place where they know they can come and be safe and get information about the community and its resources. In contemporary USA public libraries are major partners in providing support services for those who are experiencing homelessness. They provide computer and Internet access to those who do not have such access in any other location. Access to a computer connected to the Internet is required for application for many jobs these days. It is also a vital communications link as many individuals and corporations no longer use mail delivered by the postal service as their major channel of communication.

I have long been a lover of libraries. I have strong memories of the public library in my home town. I didn’t know much about Andrew Carnegie. I didn’t know about the expansion of the steel industry in the late 19th century in America. I didn’t have much contact with people who had substantial wealth. But I knew that our town had a public library because of the generosity of the man whose name the library bore. Ours wasn’t the only town with a Carnegie Library. There are seventeen Carnegie libraries in my home state of Montana. Between 1883 and 1929 nearly 1,800 libraries were built in the US and hundreds in other countries as a result of Carnegie generosity. Carnegie libraries were also built in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, Serbia, Belgium, France and other countries.

Libraries carry other traditions of public service and generosity. The library where the man was moved by being able to read the Harry Potter book to his children in his native language is not part of the Carnegie tradition. It was formed by a group of settler women before the town was incorporated as an important part of developing the culture of their new community planted in what then was considered to be wilderness. Although they lived in isolation from more urban areas, they felt that having a public library was essential to their community. It was seen as important as a fire station and existed before the town had a hospital, a city hall, a courthouse, or other community services that later became important. People have known for generations how important libraries are.

Recently I have been made aware of another role played by public libraries. In many communities libraries serve as emergency shelters. In following the news of the Franklin Fire burning near Los Angeles in California, I recently viewed a video of students sheltering in the library of Pepperdine University. In communities across the country libraries offer access to public spaces that are heated when the weather is cold and often air conditioned when the weather is oppressively hot. As global climate change intensifies more people are in need of shelter when sever weather events occur. Libraries are becoming important parts of the infrastructure of communities seeking to provide for the needs of their citizens.

Those who know me know that I am an incredibly proud father of a community librarian. The story with which today’s journal entry begins was told to my by my son about a recent event in the library he directs. I have access to inside information for what it is worth. I also have someone who will deliver library books directly to my home and return those books when they have been read, although I’m not the only one who has access to such service. And the library where our son serves isn’t the only library we support. I have frequently held more than one library card and am proud to have multiple cards at present. I know my way around several different libraries. And I am grateful for each one.

I’m pretty sure that the father who read Harry Potter to his children with tears streaming down his cheeks will remember that experience for the rest of his life. Chances are it is a story that his children will tell to their children. Libraries are not only places to check out stories, they are places where stories are made.

One of the challenges of living in the highly polarized climate of contemporary society is that many debates end up simplifying reality and presenting complex topics in a manner that avoids nuance and subtlety. The universe in which we live, however, is complex. It does have subtle distinctions that make huge differences. Nuance can be extremely important in learning. To put it simply, there is plenty in this life that doesn’t boil down to two points of view: the world is not just a case of “either/or.” I recently read a BBC investigative report that pointed out some significant problems with discussing scientific research as if there were only two possible points of view when in reality there are many different angles to most scientific explorations.

Before I get to the BBC article, however, a brief review of scientific method seems appropriate since there are too many conversations in popular culture that misrepresent the nature of science. Scientific method is a broad description of a process of establishing and testing facts through careful experimentation and testing. It begins with a question and with direct observation of the world. From the questions and the observations a hypothesis is formed. A hypothesis is always a tentative assumption or possible answer to a question. It is important to understand the tentative nature of a hypothesis. It is not a solid prediction even though it may sound like one. The hypothesis needs to be tested. That testing is done through experimentation. Experiments rarely establish simple either/or results. More often they produce complex sets of observations and data that need to be carefully analyzed before conclusions can be drawn.

To intelligently discuss scientific method it is important to remember that hypotheses are often wrong. When scientists encounter mistaken assumptions or inconclusive results from experiments they often modify hypotheses or come up with a new hypothesis that better explains their observations. This requires additional testing and experimentation. Before conclusions can be drawn, experiments must be reproducible. A single set of observations is insufficient to support a conclusion. Conclusions and facts are difficult to come by in science and they are continually subject to further questions and experimentation.

In popular culture, however, people often take single bits of data and draw conclusions prematurely. They rigorously defend their conclusions, often with anecdotal evidence. In true science, evidence that disputes a conclusion is not seen as problematic. It is all part of the process. A scientist is as open to observations and data that disprove hypotheses as to those that support a hypothesis. Social media, however, does not welcome contrary evidence.

Modern science often places a huge focus on analyzing data from previous experiments. There are many helpful studies that are basically looking at huge volumes of data from multiple experiments for new information, new hypotheses, and potentially new conclusions that can be drawn. Data analysis has been advanced by the development of more advanced computers capable of processing huge quantities of information.

This brief discussion of scientific method falls short of clarity in part because it is a complex and often messy process. It is important to keep in mind that conclusions and the establishment of facts are relatively rare in science. When they do emerge they are the result of multiple studies and multiple people bringing their analyses to bear. Information from a single study might raise new questions, but rarely produces indisputable facts.

Having said that, facts do exist. Objective truth can emerge through a long and careful process.

Back to the BBC investigation. It discovered that certain podcasts amplify harmful misinformation. Specifically the study looked at a number one ranked podcast, Diary of a CEO. Recent claims from guests were allowed with little or no challenge and created confusion. Broadcasting hypotheses as if they are established conclusions can cause hearers to make harmful choices. The BBC analysis of 15 health-related podcast episodes found an average of 14 harmful health claims that went against extensive scientific evidence. One of the pieces of misinformation discovered by the BBC analysis had to do with the claim that cancer can be treated by following a keto diet, rather than proven treatments. That caught my attention because I have been trying to engage in responsible study since receiving my own cancer diagnosis and I have learned from others living with cancer about several major scientific studies exploring the relationship between a keto diet and living with cancer. There have been multiple studies conducted by the National Institutes of Health in regards to keto diets and prostate cancer.

To be clear, the existence of studies does not produce reliable conclusions. Just because something has been studied does not mean that it should become adopted as effective medical treatment. The National Institutes of Health is one source of information that I trust, but reading the studies can be very difficult and challenging. The information that I have read about keto diets and cancer is very complex and there are significant risks as well as possible benefits. In at least one study links between a Keto Diet and increased risk of tumor metastasis were discovered. Furthermore as helpful as studies of mice with disease and their diets may be, I don’t think I should base my health decisions solely on research conducted on mice. I’m intrigued by the studies, but not yet ready to base my lifestyle on research that is not yet ready for conclusions.

Despite advertising that suggests that a ketogenic diet is a weight-loss wonder, studies show that while it can be a helpful way to start a weight loss program it often does not produce successful weight loss over long periods of time. A ketogenic diet can be observed as a serious medical diet. It has been studied in relationship to numerous health conditions, and has found to be effective in management of certain types of seizure disorders. When strictly observed, including careful counting of calories, the diet forces the body to shift its fuel. Instead of relying on sugar that comes from carbohydrates, the keto diet relies on ketone, a type of fuel that the liver produces from stored fat. Because of the strict limitations on carbohydrates, the diet requires careful management of vitamin intake, which generally comes from fruits and vegetables that are not included in the keto diet. The diet also produces strain on the liver which produces ketone bodies.

I’m willing to continue to explore and read scientific studies. I am also willing to modify my lifestyle including my diet. it would be good for me to lose some weight as well as eat a diet that is compatible with other cancer treatments. But I am not ready to draw an either/or conclusion, despite the claims of podcasters and their guests.

As always is the case with real science, more research is needed.

I grew up with Yellowstone National Park in my back yard. That isn’t literally true. To get to the North Entrance was a 90 mile drive from our town. It took over three hours to get to the Northeast Entrance if you went around outside of the park. The shortest route to that part of the park was actually driving through the park which was the only access to that area in the winter. But my father flew regular fire patrols over the park every summer and the park was only about a half hour away in our small airplane. I think we drove to and through parts of the park every year of my life. We loved winter trips and often stayed at a hot springs outside of the park and took day tours to view the animals. I drove dozens of guests through the park as a teenager and when I was older flew over the park myself in our airplane.

The nation’s first National Park is a wonderland of unique features, wild animals, and natural wonders. It is touted as “the most extraordinary collection of hot springs, geysers, mudpots, and fumaroles on Earth.” More than 10,000 hydrothermal features are found in Yellowstone, of which more than 500 are geysers. There were plenty of hot springs outside of the Park as well. Two of them in our county had public pools and we could ride our bikes to one of them. Yellowstone, however, is not exclusively hot water and steam. There are incredible mountain vistas, glaciers, and streams and rivers with ice cold water. There are places where hot water and cold water mix and you can find just the right temperature by moving around in the water.

Of course many of the thermal features of Yellowstone are so extreme that they are dangerous to humans. More than 20 people have died from scalding in hot springs, at least nine of which have occurred since 2007. Hundreds have been burned and survived, some with life altering injuries. In addition to the dangers of scalding water, many of the features of Yellowstone are acidic enough to burn holes in clothing. It is possible to get a thermal burn and a chemical burn at the same time from the same pool of water.

The hot waters of Yellowstone are not empty of life, however. Microorganisms called thermophiles, make their homes in the features of Yellowstone. These organisms are too small to be seen individually without a microscope, but exist in trillions and often appear as mats of color. Knowing that there are organisms that not only survive but thrive in the extremes of Yellowstone is a reminder that even if human caused global warming creates climatic conditions that are not conducive to human life, life on this planet will go on. The capacity of non human life to adapt to extreme conditions virtually guarantees that life will go on.

Human caused climate change is unlikely, however, to produce the conditions of Yellowstone on a widespread basis. The alteration of the climate will result in extremes of weather, but the heat of Yellowstone’s features comes not from the atmosphere but from the geothermal activity beneath the surface. Despite relatively heavy snowfall in the winter at Yellowstone, it is a relatively dry part of the country. Even prior to the catastrophic fires of 1988 that burned 1.4 million acres in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, there were a lot of dry days in the park. I can remember walking through the trees with dried pine needles crunching under foot and the wind capable of drying and cracking the skin of my face and lips. As our planet warms, there will be other types of heat that make some areas barely inhabitable by humans.

There may be a bit of an indicator of the planets future in the areas of geothermal activity that are located in tropical rainforests. There the intense heat combines with intense humidity to create extremes that make it difficult for people to study the ecology of some regions. Temperatures in the area of Peru’s Boiling River, for example reach over 110 degrees Fahrenheit. The steamy climate not only creates challenges for researchers, but actually decreases the vegetation in the forest understory. Trees that grow to giant sizes in other areas of the rainforest are shorter and les vibrant in the area near the natural hot springs.

The effects of heat and chemicals on trees is evident in Yellowstone. There are areas near geothermal features where the bare trunks of dead trees stand as testament to the changes that occurred when the underground heat reached the surface. Plant life responds to changes in climate very quickly and places that once were forested are now bare of plants. At the same time, areas that were burned by the dramatic fires of more than three decades ago now have vibrant and diverse plant life that regenerated naturally. It has been amazing to watch Yellowstone regain its balance after those fires. The intensity of those fires had a direct relationship to human involvement. We flew fire patrols and reported fires as soon as they occurred. Smokejumpers were dropped onto the fires and fires were quickly extinguished. A few decades of intense fire fighting resulted in the overproduction of plants in the forest that made more fuel for the large and uncontrollable fires that followed. Had natural fires been allowed to burn and extinguish naturally the scenario might have been different.

The bottom line is that all human involvement with this planet is part of a large experiment. We do not fully understand all of the dynamics of this complex ecosystem. We make guesses about what might happen, but often are surprised by the resiliency and adaptability of life on this planet. While we can predict some alarming consequences of human overconsumption and greed, we do not fully know all that will happen. Change often comes more suddenly and quickly than we anticipate.

We live in a time when paying attention and observing closely is critical. I no longer live near Yellowstone, but I do live in the unique ecosystem between the North Cascade volcanoes and the Salish Sea. The skills I learned growing up and observing Yellowstone are helping me to get to know this new home. Indeed there is much to learn.

I have a lot of fragments of song lyrics in my head. If you are like me, there are songs that you can sing a few bars and then can’t remember all of the words. Some of the song fragments I know come from musicals. My mother had quite a few albums of musicals and when I got old enough, I would put them on the turntable for a listen to songs like:

Hello, Dolly,
La, la, la, Dolly
it’s so nice to have you back where you belong
Your looking swell, Dolly
I can tell, Dolly,You’re still something and something and something
and still goin’ strong.
There are more words
I cannot remember
and I think somewhere the verse ends with
Dolly never go away again.

or
Some enchanted evening
You may see a stranger . . .

I don’t know any more of that song. And I used to sing bits and pieces of it because we have a friend whose brother Sam is married to a woman named Janet. I kept wanting to find an occasion to sing “Sam and Janet evening, you may see a stranger.” I should have looked up the lyrics so I could sing more.

I know a lot of hymns. Some of them I have all of the verses memorized. Most of the hymns I have memorized I’ve been singing since I was a child which means that for one reason or another the words have been changed in the hymnal we currently use in our church. Combine my less than perfect memory with my less than perfect eyesight and I can sing the wrong words even with an open hymnal in my hands. Fortunately the people who sit near me in church are pretty tolerant.

And I know a lot of fragments of kids’ songs. I like to sing them with enthusiasm. Sometimes when I don’t know the words, I just make up new ones. Lots of songs for children are easy to adapt. Pete Seeger’s Abiyoyo, for example is mostly just repeating Abiyoyo. We had the book and I would sing the lyrics before I had ever heard the tune. Then we discovered a recording of Pete Seeger singing the song. By then, however, I had memorized my own tune and adapted the words. For the life of me, I can’t sing that song the way it was intended. It is a song about a little boy who played a ukulele and all the grown ups wanted him to stop playing it. And his dad was a magician that folks wanted to get out of town. Then a monster came and the people wanted the magician to make it disappear and the people decided that the ukulele was a good thing if the magician could make the monster disappear. The monster’s name was Abiyoyo. Pete Seeger sang the song with the story all in the right order so it made sense, but all I ever did was sing the word “Abiyoyo” over and over again to a made up tune. I never did learn the song.

And there are a lot of other fragments of songs in this old brain. Sometimes they come out in bits and pieces. Sometimes they come out with a bit more volume than my wife, kids, or grandkids want. Sometimes they make people smile.

One of those songs is Bill Harley’s Zanzibar. I can remember Bill Harley’s name because there is a big Harley Davidson motorcycle rally in the town where we lived for 25 years. The song begins something like this:

Zanzibar, Zanzibar,
Zanzibar is very far
You can’t get there in a car
Don’t take your car to Zanzibar

Zanzibar, they don’t have tar
To put on roads to drive their cars
Men and women smoke cigars
There’s no tar in Zanzibar

Then I usually repeat the first lines as if it were a chorus. What is a bit funny about this song is that I can remember the story. Bill Harley was supposed to write a report on another country when he was in school, but he waited until the last minute and didn’t do his research. With the deadline looming he grabbed the last volume of the encyclopedia, opened it to the page about Zanzibar and wrote a song. There are verses about growing cloves and ground nuts and tea, but I can’t remember them, except that the song bends the word Africa to become Afriki so it will rhyme with tea. But I do remember this much:

Zanzibar, Zanzibar,
Zanzibar is very far
You can’t get there in a car
Don’t take your car to Zanzibar

The song came to my mind as I read a news story about scientists who were sorting through data from previous scientific studies. They used computers to compare pictures of whales that had been taken by researchers in different parts of the world over the years. The computers looked for features that identified individual whales, such as scars, markings on the flukes, and the like. Which reminds me that I think there is a song that is about whale flukes and people playing flutes, but I can’t remember it. Anyway, the computers sifted through a lot of photos and came up with a few identifications. One was a picture of a humpback whale off the Pacific coast of Columbia in 2017. The same whale showed up in a photograph taken in 2022, off the coast of Zanzibar in the Indian Ocean. Humpback whales are known for long migrations. They feed in the cold waters near the poles and breed in the warm waters near the equator. They have been sighted in all of the oceans of the world. But never before had a migration as long as Columbia to Zanzibar been documented. That’s over 8,000 miles if you use the closest route, which is a great circle route. Whales, however, don’t fly the great circle route. They swim in oceans and swim around land masses. The whale had certainly gone farther than the most direct route between the two places.

I don’t know why the whale made the trip. Maybe it was looking for a mate, though you might think it would have encountered others along its journey. Maybe it was looking for food, though it must have found a lot of food to sustain such a trip. Maybe it had its natural migration disrupted by climate change. Or maybe it got a song lyric stuck in its brain and decided to check out the rest of the lyrics:

Zanzibar, Zanzibar,
Zanzibar is very far
You can’t get there in a car
Don’t take your car to Zanzibar

The town where I grew up was named Big Timber. It didn’t really have much big timber, at least not if you compare it to the Douglas Fir, Spruce, and Hemlock trees that grow near where I now live. I am not completely sure of the origins of the town name, but local legend is that a spot near the present townsite on the Yellowstone River gained its name from the Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery. On their return from the West Coast in the summer of 1806, the Corps divided into two groups. Lewis lead one group down the Missouri. Clark’s group took a southern route over to the Yellowstone River. Weary from the long trip, a discouraging winter near the mouth of the Columbia River on the Pacific Coast, and over two months of overland travel, including waiting for snow to melt in the mountains so they could cross, they finally reached a place on the Yellowstone where cottonwood trees could be felled and hollowed out to make boats to enable travel downriver to the confluence of the Missouri and from there back to St. Joseph, Missouri on their way home. The site of the trees was named Big Timber.

In the late 1880s as the railroad pressed west a post office was established in anticipation of a train stop. At that time the land was part of the Crow Nation before the land west of the Boulder River was ceded to the United States Government in 1891. The townsite was called Dornix. When the Northern Pacific Railroad arrived, the townsite was moved up from the river bottom and renamed Big Timber. That was over eighty years after the visit of Captain Clark and his crew, so the origins of the name might not be exactly true to the legend.

Down next to the river, adjacent to the original townsite is a small triangle of land formed by the river, U.S. Highway 10, and the steep rise of the bluff next to the river. My parents bought that triangle of land when I was eight years old and from that time on we spent our summers down at the river, playing in the water, building tree forts in the cottonwoods, camping, fishing, and cooking over an open fire. Over the years my folks improved the cabins and shacks that were the remnants of a former motor court and our accommodations improved. Eventually my mother built a log home on the site. But more than the buildings what seeped into my soul from those summers was the river.

42 miles upstream from our place is the church camp where I was taken with my family when I was a couple of months old and to which I returned for at least a week every summer for the next 25 years. My family made frequent trips up to the camp to help with maintenance and for a few years in my early adulthood, we ran snowmobiles up the road in the winter to check snow depths for the weather service. During the first two summers of our graduate school years, Susan and I served as managers and cooks at the camp.

Upstream from the camp a dozen more miles is the Independence mining district. Gold had been discovered and claims had been staked in the area before the town of Dornix or Big Timber existed. Initially the US Government ushered the miners off the territory which was part of the Crow Nation, but as soon as the land was opened to miners, a gold rush began. By 1892, there was a town of 500 people in the high country. A telephone line was stretched up the river and a stage made three trips a week in the summer. An economic downturn resulted in a bust in 1893 and the mine closed in 1894. There never was a school or a church or bank in the town of Independence. Additional mines in the area including the Daisy, Poorman, King Solomon, and the Hidden Treasure operated off and on until about 1905. Over the years seven different stamp mills, a roller mill and a sawmill were built. All that remains are the remnants of several log cabins and the crumbling structures of the mills.

A hike of about three miles uphill from the old Independence townsite are the headwaters of the Main Boulder river. Although the glacier has since melted, when I was a young man we could stand next to it and listen to the drip, drip, drip of melting ice that formed the rivulets that merged into streams and flowed together to form the river. The glacier boasted algae blooms in the summer that turned the surface pink wherever we walked upon it.

I went away to college and although I spent several college and graduate school summers in Big Timber and in the mountains above town, I never returned to live. I’ve lived in four different states since that time. The river, however, continues to be a major theme of my story. When we go camping and are able to sleep next to a rushing river, I sleep better than in any other place. The sound of the river, even the rolling rocks at high water, calm my spirit in ways no other sound can. I’ve often slept where I could hear ocean waves at night, but it is not the same.

Etched into my memory and my spirit is the drip, drip, drip of the river’s source. It is an eternal gift of water, carried into the mountains by clouds, falling as snow to banks a dozen or more feet deep each winter and then melting and forming a river capable of flooding at spring runoff. It is a river where the trout spawn and will rise to a dry fly if cast by a skilled fisher. The river is eternal, but the water the flows through it is fresh every second. On average nearly 120 cubic feet of water flow by our old campsite every second. Although these days the water has been contaminated by human and animal activity, I remember when it was the purest and cleanest and best tasting water one could drink.

More than half of my body is water. Like the water in the river the water in my body is constantly changing. But I was formed drinking the water of the river. It has become a part of me and I am a part of it. No matter where I live I will always belong to that river.

When he was young, our son told us that he had two grandmas: “A sweater grandma and a cookie grandma.” My mother was the sweater grandma. As long as I could remember her knitting was a constant companion. While other women carried purses, our mom carried her knitting bag. It had a lot more than knitting in it. It was a seemingly endless source of band aids, chewing gum, useful tool such as rulers and scissors, and a lot of other necessary everyday items. My mother-in-law was the cookie grandma. She paid close attention to the food choices of her family and that included me and our children. She knew what our favorite foods were. Once she asked me what I would order for myself if I took Susan out to dinner. She served that menu for dinner the very next evening. She knew which cookies were our son’s favorite and made sure that there was a supply of them when we came to visit.

My father died before we had children, but I had the opportunity to see him with my sisters’ children and I know what kind of a grandfather he was. One thing he did that I imitate regularly was to get down on the floor with the little ones. He let them climb on him and allowed his laughter to spread throughout the room.

My maternal grandmother died before I was born and my mother’s father died when I was just two years old, so I don’t have much memory of those grandparents, but my father’s parents lived just an hour’s drive from our home and we saw them regularly when I was growing up. In addition to large family gatherings for holidays, we often would stop by their home for brief visits. My dad and I would sometimes stop in their town after flying fire patrol and walk down to their house for breakfast. I don’t know if my dad warned his parents that we were coming, but it always seemed to me that their house was a place where we could arrive unannounced and be welcomed to a meal.

For as long as I can remember, I have imagined that I would become a father and eventually a grandfather. Our children brought so much meaning and joy to my life that I wanted them to have the experience of being parents themselves. From the time they were fairly young, I saw qualities in both of them that led me to believe that they both would be very good parents and I have not been disappointed. Once I jokingly commented to our children that I thought that five grandchildren would be just the right number. “I don’t care how you do it,” I said. “One of you can have two and the other three or however you want, but 5 would be a good number.” Little did I believe that I would turn out to have five grandchildren. I don’t think I expected the number to be that high until we learned that our youngest grandson was on his way. But I think that five is a very good number for me.

I feel the blessings of being a grandfather every day. I am delighted with technology that lets me video chat with my grandson who lives in South Carolina. I even am able to read him stories over the computer. And four of our grandchildren live close enough to our house for me to ride my bicycle over to their place. I get to see them several times each week. It turned out not to be 2 and 3 or 3 and 2, our daughter has one child and our son has four. I find the luxury of modern technology combined with being retired and able to live near our son’s home to be among the joys of my life. When our children were growing up we lived hundreds of miles from their grandparents and were able to see them only a few times each year.

I was able to hold our youngest grandson on the day he was born and have lived just down the road from him for all of his life. He is at home in our house, knows where the toys are stored, and is able to entertain himself whenever he comes to visit.

I have good friends, however, who are not grandparents and who likely will never be grandparents. In the last decade falling birthrates in the United States have resulted in a dramatic increase in the number of people over 50 years of age who do not have any grandchildren. In 2014 roughly 60 percent of US adults over 50 were grandparents. The number is now roughly half and continues to decline.

I wasn’t a grandfather when I was fifty. In our family the children mostly came in my sixties. But I’ve got friends who like me are in their seventies who have no grandchildren. I don’t know exactly how they feel, but I wonder if they have a sense of longing and loss when they think of grandchildren. From what I know of them, most seem like they would be very good grandparents. Recently, when we learned that one of our friends is expecting her first grandchild, I commented to Susan, “That is one lucky kid! It will be born with a terrific grandma!”

I don’t subscribe to some of the things that are said about being grandparents. I don’t see our grandchildren as a reward for aging. We did nothing to “earn” our grandchildren. We are simply fortunate to have them in our lives. And I don’t agree with those who say that being a grandparent is better than being a parent. I love being a father and I enjoyed every stage of our children’s growing up. There were hard times and sleepless nights, but the overall experience was undeniably positive. Being a grandpa isn’t better than being a dad, but it is different.

Because we lived a long ways from our parents when our children were little, our kids got to know other caring adults in their age range. We often speak of and remember with joy their “church grandmas and grandpas.” So to my friends who do not have grandchildren and wish they did I offer this invitation: “Come on over! I have wonderful grandchildren and I’m glad to share. You can stop by and visit them whenever you like. And, most of the time, we’ll have extra cookies to share as well.”

Today is the second Sunday of Advent, the Sunday of peace. Like so many generations of faithful people who have preceded us we light the candle with a vision, but without a clear understanding of the path to peace, or of what a world at peace would truly be. Peace is a multi-dimensional concept that includes but is not limited to an end of violence and conflict between nations. Those seeking peace in the world have long understood that simply the ending of armed conflict between nations is insufficient when injustice prevails. The suffering of innocents has occurred in nations that are not ostensibly at war with other nations. There is no peace for the victims of sexual violence, human trafficking, and genocide. A world at peace requires justice for all. Huge imbalances in the distribution of power and wealth result in violence against those with the least.

As we lit our Advent candle and discussed the idea of peace with our grandchildren last night, they focused not on the international situation and the places of war in our world, but rather on the sense of inner peace. The children spoke of the sense of peace that they feel when they play with their younger brother, when they walk in the forest, and when they have time to simply lie still in a warm and comfortable place.

This year we are reading together “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” during Advent. The familiar story of the Herdman children, who are the worst kids in the world, and how they toke over the church pageant has now been made into a movie, but the book remains a classic and worth reading aloud again and again. At the point where we are in the story, there is little that resembles peace in the pageant preparations. Most of the children are simply afraid of the Herdmans, and it appears that chaos will disrupt the traditions that have been part of the church’s Christmas pageant for as long as anyone can remember.

Somehow, thinking of traditions, brought to my mind something that has been a part of my life since I was born. Eight years before my birth, the United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was the only use of nuclear weapons in armed conflict and the results were devastating. It has never been possible to get a completely accurate count of the casualties. Between 150,000 and 250,000 people were immediately killed, most of them civilians, many of them women, children, and elders. A comparable number of people later died of burn and radiation injuries. It is estimated that 650,000 people survived the attacks. They are known as Hibakusha in Japanese.

I grew up under the threat of further nuclear war. We were taught to crawl under our school desks in the event of an attack, as if such behavior would have made any difference to the victims of the the attacks against Japan. Our neighbors dug bomb shelters and equipped them with non perishable food and drinking water as if surviving the initial attack would somehow be preferable than dying instantly. The doomsday clock has been ticking near to midnight for all of my life.

I don’t know how to teach my grandchildren about peace in a world with such a history of violence where peace between nations seems to be impossible and where the places of power and decision making seem so removed from our everyday lives.

This week, on Tuesday, the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded. This year’s recipient will be Nihon Hidankyo, an organization of local Hibakusha associations that also includes victims of nuclear weapons tests on various Pacific islands. The Nihon Hidankyo is an organization dedicated to protecting the rights of survivors and working to insure that nuclear weapons are never again used.

One of the privileges of my life is that I have traveled to Japan. I have walked the reconstructed streets of Hiroshima. I have stood outside of the ruins. I have pondered the paper cranes at the Children’s Peace Monument and seen the tiny cranes folded by Sadako Sasaki in the Children’s Museum. I have rung the peace bell with my prayers for peace and my promise to work for a world free of weapons of mass destruction.

Today, as we worship with our congregation and light the candle of peace in our church, I will look at the paper cranes that are decorating our sanctuary and I will remember my time in Hiroshima. And I will offer a prayer of thanks for the witness of the survivors and the victims. It is often the victims who bring us critical messages of peace. Nihon Hidankyo is not the first recipient of the Nobel Peace Price that has been the victim of violence.

Last year’s recipient, Narges Mohammadi, spoke up against oppression of women in Iran. In 2018, Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad were awarded the prize for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict.

If we would truly seek peace, we must listen carefully to the victims. And we live in a world with so many victims. The death toll in Gaza has exceeded 44 thousand with 70 percent of the victims being children and women. As many as 100,000 have been killed in the war in Ukraine with an additional 400,000 wounded. It is nearly impossible to know the exact number of victims of the Sudanese civil war, but more than 60,000 have been counted. Over 7 million have been forced from their homes and over 2 million are international refugees from that war. And the list of wars and violence goes on an on. The number of victims increases every day.

Peace is a difficult concept. That is why it is so important for us to focus on peace and renew our commitment to peace every year. May we continue to listen carefully to the victims and join in both their prayers and their work for peace in the world, as we practice peacefulness in our personal lives each day.

I was ten years old when the time came to choose a band instrument. I knew that my mother had played the cornet and that there was a cornet in the cabinet above the piano, but I thought of the piano as mother’s instrument. Nonetheless, I was pleased when she took it down, cleaned it up a bit, oiled the valves, and taught me how to buzz into the mouthpiece. I could make a really loud sound with that cornet. But it was old and the finish was a bit dull and I wanted something new. At the band instrument evening, when a music store from eighty miles away from our town came and showed instruments, my eyes immediately went to a shiny new trumpet. Whereas my mother’s horn was silver and needed to be polished, there was a shiny, lacquered brass trumpet. Even the mouthpiece was longer and seemed to be more modern than the one that came with the old cornet.

The music store had all kinds of plans. They rented instruments. They had rent-to-own plans. But my father was not one for monthly payments. I already knew what he would say: “If you don’t have the money to buy it outright, you can’t afford it.” And I couldn’t imagine how I could get the price of that new trumpet. Wonder of wonders, surprise of surprises, however, we came home from that evening instrument show with the trumpet. It came with a case lined with velvet. My first lesson, before I took the horn to band practice was a strict lesson in caring for the horn. I was told how easily it could become dented.

There were at least nine trumpets in our fifth and sixth grade band. I started out at the end of the row, but I discovered that I had an advantage over some of my classmates. Five years of piano lessons meant I could already read music and the music for the trumpet part in grade school band was very simple compared to the piano music I was already playing. I also learned that if I practiced my trumpet every day I would be allowed to drop out of piano lessons, which at the time seemed like a really good deal to me. I advanced to the first trumpet part within a few weeks, challenging sixth graders and winning the challenges. I didn’t make first chair that first year but it was within sight. For the next six years I traded first and second chairs with another trumpet player in our town and I was given my share of solo parts. I saved my money and bought sheet music, mostly simplified versions of the music of Herb Alpert.

In the spring of my eighth grade, I was asked to play taps with another trumpet player at our community’s Memorial Day parade. We played three times that morning: once in front of the Legion Hall, once at a bridge over the river as a wreath was thrown into the water, and once at the cemetery where white markers indicated the graves of those who had served. After that, I was invited to play taps for committal services from time to time. By the time I got to high school, those funerals became a mix of old men, who have served in wars long ago and a few young men who came home from Vietnam in caskets. When I was a junior I played for a young man who was only two years older than I. It was a sobering moment as I held the final note for as along as my breath would last and stood trembling as I held my horn and the sound echoed off of the hills.

In high school, my parents encouraged my playing by allowing me to take private lessons from a college professor and symphony trumpet player in a town sixty miles from our home. Each week I was allowed to take the family car over the pass for my lessons. All winter long I returned in the dark. I not only learned a lot about playing the trumpet, but also a lot about how to drive a car in the mountains. After a year of no accidents and only one speeding ticket, with the consultation of my trumpet teacher, I purchased a new trumpet. It was silver and shiny and featured a bigger bore than my previous instrument, for which I was allowed some trade-in value despite a couple of dents.

In college I learned that I my trumpet wasn’t the best of the best. It was a good collegiate instrument, but there were students who owned more expensive and fancier instruments. I admired them, but I loved my trumpet and it served me well. It has been more than 56 years since I bought that instrument and I still have it and play it.

However, there is more to the story. Twenty or more years ago, I was working with the mother of a young man who died from suicide. As she processed the grief of her traumatic loss it fell to her to dispose of his personal property. Among the items he owned was a beautiful trumpet - one of the best manufactured. She asked me if I would help her sell it. I wanted that trumpet, but professional ethics prevented me from any appearance of taking advantage of someone in their grief. Instead, I found a high school student with talent enough to deserve the instrument and put the mother in touch with his parents. They negotiated a price and the instrument was sold. I heard it played from time to time and continued to play my high school instrument.

Then one day after he had graduated from high school, gotten married and was establishing his career the young man called and told me he wanted to sell the trumpet. I asked around in search of another high school student worthy of the instrument. In the meantime, I paid slightly more than market value for the instrument, intending to resell it when I found the right student. I couldn’t do it. I fell in love with it. It is sitting in its case between my desk and my music stand as I write.

And now I own three horns. An antique silver cornet, a big bore trumpet from the 1960s and this beautiful instrument. No man my age needs three horns. I don’t play enough to justify such luxury, but I am emotionally attached to all three. I may be nurturing a problem that my family will one day have to solve.

Sometimes I forget the calm of the seashore. I live in a house that is a short walk from the Salish sea, a part of the Pacific Ocean that includes the Strait of Georgia between the mainland and Vancouver Island. I walk to the beach nearly every day. But sometimes I forget just how peaceful and calming it can be to sit on a log and listen to the quiet lapping of the water and the gentle calls of the birds and look at the fog drifting around the islands. But I also live in a place with freeways full of rushing cars and instant reporting of violence around the world. I live in a time of division and threats and political revenge. Sometimes I forget and I need to simply sit and listen to my own breath as it synchronizes to the gentle waves and be reminded of the calm of the seashore.

Sometimes I forget the glory of the mountains. On a clear day I can see the North Cascades from my bedroom window. I can ride my bike to the top of a hill with a glorious view of Kona Kulshan, also known as Mount Baker. The glacier covered volcano rises more than 10,000 feet above my home. The evening alpenglow illuminates the mountain with orange and pink and purple and gold. Just looking at the mountain can take your breath away. Driving up its slopes, hiking in the old growth forest among the giant trees, dipping a toe into ice cold waters and sliding skis along the snow are all readily available to me. But sometimes I forget and I need to open my eyes to the glory that surrounds me every day.

Sometimes I forget the mystery of the fog. It moves in and out and all about silently and changes the appearance of everything. Distances seem greater in the fog and my glasses become covered with mist. When I am in a rush the fog can be a frustration because it invites slowing down. Reduced visibility increases the danger of driving. Wet roads can become slippery with the drop of a few degrees. On chilly mornings frost lies beneath the fog and makes walking a challenge. And sometimes I forget the simple joy of a mysterious morning and the embrace of the fog.

Sometimes I forget the awe of the Northern Lights. The aurora can surprise when it is least expected and paint the night sky with ribbons and curtains and rays and spirals, flickers and flashes. I am told that the lights reflect solar storms with intensities that are unimaginable to the dwellers of our planet. Earth’s atmosphere and magnetic field shield us from particles emitted from the sun traveling at millions of miles peer hour. But the scientific explanation is nothing compared to the sheer awe inspired by looking at the night sky in north country. I forget how powerful it is to simply be overcome with awe, standing in the cold with gratitude that I was there to see it all.

Sometimes I forget the gift of sitting still. I wear a watch that records whether or not I have stood and walked around each hour. I push myself to keep up with regular exercise and enjoy thinking of myself as an active person. I ride my bike up hill and down. And sometimes I forget how pleasant it is to simply sit still, inhaling and exhaling the gift of clean air, relaxing my body.

Sometimes I forget the power of shared grief. I have been given the privilege of being invited into the homes of grief, where death has left survivors overcome with tears and emotions. I have witnessed pain so deep that it cannot be cured, only shared. I have been trusted with precious memories stirred with mixed emotions. But I am tempted to rush on with everyday living and sometimes I forget the power of simply sitting with another in the midst of grief.

Sometimes I forget the joy of slicing and eating an apple. I can quarter an apple with a sharp knife and then slice each quarter into four. Sixteen slices of fruity flavor with just the right texture of crunch and softness to fill my mouth with joy. Sometimes I simply bite into the fruit and forget to savor. One slice at a time, noticing and enjoying each bite is the way to eat an apple, but sometimes I forget.

Sometimes I forget the simple pleasure of walking. My body is a miracle of muscles and bones and tendons and skin that allows me to stand on my own and move myself about step by step, but sometimes I simply rush from place to place without feeling the pleasure that is always available to me by simply walking.

Sometimes I forget the quiet of predawn. There is a moment each day when the coyotes stop singing, the loons stop calling, the gulls stop squabbling. It is as if all earth is waiting for the first glimpse of sunlight from the eastern horizon. Dark slides into light at an almost imperceptible pace. Some days, however, I sleep in and keep my eyes and ears closed to the quiet that is offered each day.

Sometimes I forget the brilliance of a rainbow. Horizon to horizon color that is the gift of a particular point of view and the power of light to pass through water molecules suspended in the air and reflect off of clouds creating brilliance that requires no witness. Rainbows paint the sky whether or not they are seen. And I am not always looking. Sometimes I forget how beautifully brilliant a rainbow can be.

Sometimes i forget the miracle of holding a tiny baby. When I reflect I can remember forcing my hands not to shake to prove myself worthy of holding such a precious gift. I have been trusted to hold tiny ones by mothers and fathers worn ragged from lack of sleep and in need of a brief respite. But it has been decades since I have been awakened by the tiny cry of an infant and sometimes I forget the miracle of those moments.

I am old.
Sometimes I forget.
Thank you, God, for the reminders.

My path to becoming an ordained minister was pretty direct. I set my eyes on theological education fairly early in my college career. Although I technically graduated from college under the college’s independent studies program, I had earned enough credits for a double major in Christian Thought and Philosophy with a minor in French, which was a pretty good foundation to go on to theological seminary. I had made my intention of becoming a pastor clear in my local church and Conference as well, and served as a licensed minister in a local church during my senior year of college. Interestingly my license authorized me to perform all the rites and sacraments of the church with the exception of marriage. No one in the congregation I served at the time asked me to officiate at a wedding, so the exception never came into play. I suspect it was put there more to prevent me from officiating at the weddings of friends and classmates, but none of them asked me to do so, either. I was married at the time and had classmates who married, but there was no shortage of ordained ministers at our college.

I took what became known as the direct route of preparation for ordination after college, going straight to graduate theological seminary and there enrolled in a program in which I earned a combined Masters of Divinity and Doctor of Ministry degree in a four-year period with two internships. I became a “Student in Care of the Association” before heading to seminary and had an advisor in my local Association throughout my seminary time. In the spring of our last year of seminary, as we were preparing for graduation, we circulated our professional profiles and interviewed for and received the call to become local church pastors. After graduation we began serving two congregations while completing the steps to ordination in our home association, which included being interviewed by the Committee on Ministry for fitness for ordination, presenting a paper to an Ordaining Ecclesiastical Council of the churches in our Association and being ordained at a special meeting of the Association before being examined and installed as pastors in the congregations we were serving.

Somewhere along that journey I was at a couple of church meetings where a pastor was asked to give the blessing over a meal and declined, saying, “Others can say the blessing. It doesn’t always have to be the pastor who gives the prayer.” While I agree with the truth of that statement, there was something awkward about the way in which those particular situations were handled and I resolved to myself that when I became ordained I would never decline to offer a public prayer when asked. To the best of my knowledge I have kept that promise.

I have offered public prayers at a lot of church dinners. I have also prayed publicly in a lot of different places including delivering the invocation at City Council and State Legislature sessions, praying at service club meetings and fund-raising banquets for nonprofits, blessing fire trucks, ambulances, and law enforcement vehicles, dedicating homes and public buildings, and more.

I have also delivered a lot of prayers in more intimate settings. I have prayed while visiting church members in homes, hospitals, and care centers. I have offered a lot of prayers in hospital waiting rooms and patient care rooms, intensive care units and emergency rooms. I have prayed as people took their last breath and I have prayed as they recovered from near death experiences. I have prayed with the victims and survivors of sudden loss and trauma. I have prayed in jails and juvenile corrections facilities with inmates and with corrections officers.

There have been many places where I have had the opportunity to craft careful prayers. A teacher and mentor once challenged me to write a prayer for each class I taught. The challenge was specific about writing the prayer, not just offering an extemporary prayer. I believe the discipline of thinking about the class content, the students, and the learning process in advance and carefully choosing the words of the prayer has made me a better teacher. When giving an invocation at a formal event, I took time to craft prayers with great care. I once was asked to deliver a prayer to a group of persons with disabilities, their caregivers and family members and worked diligently on the prayer. The prayer was so well received that I was asked to pray with that group at every annual gathering until I retired and moved from that town. I always invested hours in writing and editing those prayers. I always wrote out the prayers for funeral and wedding services. Those are once-in-a-lifetime experiences for those involved and I was intentional about choosing the right words and avoiding misspeaking.

But there have also been occasions for prayer when there was no opportunity to prepare. I have walked into hospital rooms where I didn’t know anyone and been called to pray within moments of arriving, sometimes even before I knew the names of each person in the room. I have prayed with parents who have lost a child and with families who have lost an elder. I have prayed with persons who are unconscious and those who are in shock.

After a lifetime of praying in public, I recently was given a copy of a book by a colleague who I did not meet until he was very near to the end of his life. The book, published posthumously, is a collection of poems, prayers, and reflections of his years of ministry, including several years as a night chaplain in a major trauma hospital. “Lord of the night, Lord of the day” is the collection of writings by Dale Kimball. It is a powerful volume and an opportunity for me to learn even more about the craft of praying in public. One brief reflection has been dancing in my brain since I read it:

“Praying aloud in the presence of others helps me to keep some important things straight, such as telling the truth and not trying to be more than I really am.”

I know Dale is right. It is humbling to be truly honest in prayer and to bring your full self into the relationship with God and those who hear your prayer.

These days, I am not often asked to offer prayers. But there are still opportunities for public prayer that come to me. Dale’s simple statement has become a challenge for me just like the challenge to write prayers in preparation for teaching. I may have become a minister 46 years ago, but there is still much that I am called to learn, and many more prayers to offer.

Historians observe cycles in patterns of thinking that become evident when looking back over long periods of time. Certain ideas emerge over and over in the long story of humans. One of those cycles is the relationship between political distress and visions of peace and hope in the history of Israel. A pivotal moment in the Hebrew Scriptures is the Babylonian exile, also known as the Babylonian captivity. In 597 BCE King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon besieged Jerusalem and King Jehoiachin and other Jewish leaders were deported to Babylon. This captivity lasted until after Persia conquered Babylon and Cyrus the Great allowed the captives to return to Jerusalem in 538. Many of the ideological themes surrounding the exile are expressed in the writings of the prophets. Those ideas include visions of peace and justice for the people.

The theological themes of the exile continue to emerge in cycles throughout the history of Israel. During the Hellenistic era from 363 to 323, visions of peace and justice show up in Jewish literature including the Books of Daniel and Enoch. Those themes play out again in the time of Jesus and the years afterward when Jewish leaders rose up and attempted revolt against Roman occupation of Israel.

The themes that are evident in Isaiah play a big role in the Gospel of Luke, where Jesus often quotes the prophet directly. This makes sense when the context of the writing of the gospel is considered. Most scholars date the Gospel of Luke around 80 to 90 AD. Some date it a bit earlier or a bit later, but the vast majority place the writing of the Gospel between the first failed revolt against Rome in 66-73 AD and the second failed revolt in 115-117. At the time when the New Testament books of Luke and Acts are being recorded the people of Israel are rising up in protest against Roman oppression. As they do so, they reach back into their history and draw upon ideas from the Babylonian exile.

As Christians we have inherited all of this history and we can see the cycles of history unfolding in the texts we read throughout the year. Advent begins with the lighting of the first of four candles which is sometimes called the prophet’s candle. It is our custom to read the words of the prophets on the first Sunday of Advent. One popular text comes from the vision of the Peaceable Kingdom outlined in Isaiah 11: “The wolf shall live with the lamb; the leopard shall lie down with the kid; the calf and the lion will feed together, and a little child shall lead them.” (Isaiah 11:6 NRSVUE)

At this point in today’s journal entry, I need to pause to remind readers that I am frequently accused by family of going on way too long with elaborate setups for stories and even jokes. All of the obscure religious history in the opening of today’s journal post is simply to get us to the historical reference between the leadership of a child and the vision of peace. I really intend to write about another reference to children: La Niña events typically occur every three to five years and can affect weather across the globe. In Spanish, La Niña means a little girl. With its male companion, El Niño, Los Niños is the term for children. To avoid a further digression, I’ll leave the discussion of the role of gender in Spanish to another day.

Meteorologists report that La Niña events occur every three to five years as part of a temperature cycle in the Tropical Pacific. These weather cycles have far reaching effects on the weather. A La Niña year, as opposed to a El Niño year, generally brings gray and wet winters to the Pacific Northwest. Here in our part of Washington we are already known for gray and wet weather. When the forecasters call for cooler temperatures and more rain we have a tendency to hunker down and some of our neighbors head out for vacations in warmer parts of the world.

However, we’ve had three days of bright sunshine so far this week. Advent has begun with sunny skies and calm blue seas. The temperatures have been a bit cool, with frost in the mornings, but the bright sunshine lifts our spirits and the clear skies give us dramatic views of the mountains.

The folks at NOAA make seasonal predictions in three categories: above average, around average, and below average. For the next three months they have predicted above average precipitation for our region, which is welcome because below average rainfall as seen in some El Niño years can intensify the effects of wildfire in the region. Gray, rainy days may have effects on people’s moods, especially those who suffer from various seasonal affective disorders, but they don’t seem nearly as oppressive as gray, smoky skies which accompany drought years.

Climatologists remind us that human caused global warming is having dramatic effects on weather patterns, often exaggerating the extremes of cycles that are normally present. That means more intense storms and more flooding in some regions and more drought and more intense wildfires in other regions. While we all can make changes in our lifestyles that can help to was the climate crisis, we all will continue to experience greater intensity in the cycles of weather.

It seems to me that references to children, whether predicting the weather or dreaming of peace, are appropriate. Not long ago our two-year-old grandson threw himself onto the floor with a fit of crying because he was told that he couldn’t have ice cream. He can be quite dramatic when he doesn’t get his way. The tantrums, however, don’t last. As quickly as they arise, they go away when he sees that they don’t work to get him what he wants. Most of the time that we spend with him he is a happy and cheerful child.

I’m not sure if the sunny days we’ve been enjoying are a momentary tantrum, but we’ll take them as part of the joy of living in a world with children. And, a little child shall lead us.

As I grow older, I become more aware of the many things about which I know very little. I think that I used to believe that with age came wisdom and that I might grow in expertise as I gained experience. However, it seems to me that with each passing year I discover more and more topics about which I know little or nothing. I sometimes joke that I reached the height of my intellectual capacity at age 25 and that it has all been downhill since then. That isn’t really true and I know it, but I may have reached the height of my confidence around the age of 25. I was pretty full of myself back then. I had achieved academic success and had mastered a whole host of theological jargon. I could cite books and studies that I had read as evidence for the arguments I presented. I thought of myself as educated, rational, and cogent.

These days I am quite conscious of my lapses in memory, my tendency to focus on trivia, and my adherence to dated scientific research. Recently I was scanning the bibliography of a class I will be teaching after the first of the year and realized how heavily it was weighted towards 20th century writers and research. As I struggle to update the document, I am finding that there are dozens of authors and significant research with which I am not current. I’ve been trying to catch up, but I have to admit that I’ve fallen behind in a topic with which I used to speak with authority.

When I was in high school, I rode a bus 60 miles to hear a live performance by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. At the time, I owned a pretty good collection of record albums by the group. I know the order of release of “Whipped Cream and Other Delights,” “South of the Border,” “What Now My Love,” “Going Places,” “A Man and His Music,” and “The Lonely Bull.” I had purchased all of the albums, which was saying a lot. Even though my other expenses were low, a record album selling for $4.50 was worth 9 hours of labor at the rate I was earning. And I soon became aware of how far behind I was falling because though the record albums sounded great on my father’s stereo, I was going to need 8 Track cartridges to play the music in the car and I didn’t have access to a car that had an 8 track player, which was going to run close to 100 hours of labor just for the player. The entire balance in my savings account would fall short of that number.

These days, however, I’m not up to date on pop culture. I no longer own any vinyl records and I confess I didn’t hold on to them to capitalize on their value. A half dozen original albums in their original slipcovers would probably bring close to $200 on eBay these days. Then again, I just looked online to discover that Taylor Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department” album on vinyl is selling for $60 at Target. Being retired and not having worked for an hourly wage for many years, I have no idea how that translates to a percentage of my income, but I know I’ve got considerably more than that amount in my savings. I also know that I have no intention of purchasing the album.

I’ve nothing against Taylor Swift. I just have to admit that she and her music are things about which I have very little knowledge. According to an article I read online, Swift is expected to profit about $4.1 billion from the Eras Tour. The tour concludes in Vancouver, British Columbia, which is closer to my home than that Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass tour came to my home years ago. I can’t remember what we paid for tickets to attend that concert, but tickets for the Taylor Swift performances next weekend at BC Place Stadium range from $1,422 to $83,078. I have no urge to spend more than Susan and I paid for our first house for a concert ticket. And I have to confess I don’t understand how anyone would.

What I do know is that the concerts are a big deal around here. In addition to expensive ticket prices, hotel prices north of the border have skyrocketed for the weekend. Rooms costing under $300 per night are going for over $1,000. According to our local newspaper, there are some hotel rooms in Vancouver priced at over $7 thousand for a single night during the tour. Something tells me that hotels in our neighborhood that usually go for around $100 a night will be popular among some concert goers. I’m guessing that wait times at the border before and after the concerts will be long enough to boost sales at area restaurants. When the line at the border stretches back past the last exit before, a stream of cars will block the streets in town as drivers try to get to the next border crossing to the east, which is also in town. I’m planning to stay home those evenings. I’ve death with enough traffic in my life.

I am no expert, and I don’t understand the numbers. The Washington Post reported that the six shows Swift performed in Los Angeles gave a $320 million boost to the local economy. The concert in Kansas City brought an estimated $48 million to the local economy. Our local Chamber of Commerce doesn’t have any estimates on the local impact of the concerts, but the word on the street is that vacation rentals are all booked for this weekend. December isn’t usually a time when a lot of people flock to our cloudy beaches to vacation. I’m thinking it will be a good weekend to plan not to go out for dinner. Then again, the urge to go out for dinner doesn’t seize me very often. The eats at our house are pretty good.

I’ll leave commentary on the quality of the performances to others. After all, I won’t be in the audience even though the venue is a mere 40 miles from my home.

Geoffrey Chaucer is considered to be one of the great English poets. He is the author of The Canterbury Tales, but I don’t think I’ve read much of his work. I sometimes think that I avoided reading classical literature in high school. I did read the mandatory plays of Shakespeare and I read a few classical novels, but my interests didn’t turn to literature, and especially to poetry until I became a bit older and a bit more mature. Although I am an avid reader and I spend time with poetry on a regular basis at this stage of my life, I have somehow missed some of the classics. What I know about Chaucer is a single quote, written some seven hundred years ago: “Time and tide wait for no man.” I’ve been thinking about that quote, without any particular context recently simply because living next to the ocean has made me aware of the tides.

Having lived most of my life far from the ocean, I had a rudimentary understanding of the ebb and flow of ocean waters from having traveled. I remember being surprised by fishing boats left in the mud during low tide when visiting the Brittany coast on a trip to Europe. I was really impressed with the huge tidal variations when we visited the Bay of Fundy in Canada, where the tides change by more than 50 feet every six hours or so. I vaguely knew that there was a relationship between the tides and the phases of the moon, but before moving to the coast and developing a pattern of walking along the beach nearly every day, I didn’t really understand the tides.

Of course, if I had paused to think about it, I suppose I would have understood that it isn’t just the moon that has an effect on the tides. On this planet, when we speak of gravity, we need to be aware of the much larger sun, which exerts gravitational pull on all of the planets of our solar system. For those of us walking along the beach the result is that when the sun, moon, and earth line up at full moon and at the new moon the tides are higher. Conversely, when the sun and moon are at right angles in relationship with the earth, as is the case when the moon is at quarters, the tides will be lower. Those monthly variations are known as spring tides, when the tide is higher and neap tides when it is lower.

Then to make the effect even more pronounced, the distance between the moon and the earth varies because the orbit of the moon is elliptical. When the moon is closest to the earth and aligned with the sun at full or new moon we get king tides, which are the greatest tidal variation of the year, usually in the fall around here.

The tides can seem a bit dramatic here because our bay is shallow. When the tides are very low there can be a significant amount of mud between what we consider to be our beach and the water. Those tides happen when the moon is at quarters and also at its greatest distance from the earth.

Right now, the tides are relatively high and the water level in the bay is generally on a range right at the bay where we walk. For example, all day today, the water level in the bay will be higher than average, with the highest tide over 10 feet and the daytime low tide only a couple of feet lower. The lowest tide will be tonight at nearly midnight when it will sink to two feet below, making the tidal variation between our highest and lowest tides over 12 feet.

And so far, I’ve written more than half of my usual essay with information that people who live next to the ocean all of their lives know intuitively and don’t have to think about as much as I do. And it all started by my admission that there is a lot of classical literature that I have not read. I suppose I could have made the same point by reflecting on rock music. After all, when I was in my twenties the Rolling Stones sang, “Time waits for no one, and it won’t wait for me,” which is pretty much a Chaucer quote, but I didn’t see the connection back then.

What I am slowly learning as I grow into my seventies is not so much of a sense that the passing of time or the rising and falling of the tides are forces that are bigger than my life, which they certainly are, but rather that there is a rhythm to the universe of which I am a part.

One doesn’t have to live next to an ocean to experience the movement of water as a metaphor for the passage of time. Although I haven’t read Chaucer, I’m not totally culturally deprived. I read Thoreau’s “Walden” as a teen. Although the book contains reflections about living next to a pond, it is his comparison of the passage of time to a moving stream that continues to capture me. He describes time as “but a stream I go a-fishing in.” Growing up next to a blue ribbon trout stream and not being very good at fishing has given me a sense of connection to that metaphor. Actually, I’m not bad at fishing, I’m just not very good at catching. I have know for most of my life that the experience of fishing is not limited to catching. I enjoy the benefits of casting a fly and quietly reflecting as it drifts down the stream even when nothing rises to the hook.

Whether allowing my mind to drift with the waters of a stream or tune my daily walks to the rising and falling of the tide, I find solace in the movement of water and the passage of time. Thoreau says of the stream: “Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains.” My time may be growing shorter as I grow older, but the flow of human history continues. I write thousands of words, but sometimes just a few say more than the multitudes. And so I will continue to read the words of the poets and allow them to seep into my memory. Time and tide may wait for no one, but we all can dance to their rhythm and take time for a bit of fishing.

Today we begin a new year in the Christian calendar. We begin with hope. The first Sunday of Advent, and the lighting of the first candle in the Advent wreath, focuses our attention on hope. The Christian calendar, and the celebration of Advent is the product of centuries of tradition. The word Advent comes from the Latin word advenus. That word is a translation of the Greek word parousia. Both words refer to the concept of “coming,” and carry with them a sense of preparation for the coming of something that is new and different. The season of Advent developed in the 4th and 5th centuries as a time of preparation for the baptism of new Christians at the January feast of Epiphany, which is the traditional time of the celebration of events early in the life of Jesus, specifically the visit of the Magi, his baptism in the Jordan River by John, and his first miracle at the wedding at Cana. For centuries the church did not have an official holiday that was focused on the birth of Jesus, his being laid in a manger, and other events reported only in the Gospel of Luke such as the busy nature of Bethlehem due to an enrollment and the visit of the angels to the shepherds.

Before the 6the century, Advent was more tied to anticipation of the second coming of Christ and the hope of the resurrected Christ bringing earthly justice to those who have been victimized by empire and the unfair distribution of resources.

Understanding the history of Christian traditions and practices provides opportunities to understand the deeper meanings of our faith. Neither the Biblical narrative nor the history of the church place undue emphasis on what happens after death. Despite the preaching of many contemporary Christians, the focus on heaven and hell, reward and punishment based on the beliefs held in this life, is not a major theme in the story of Christianity. The dominant theme, and the source of our hope, is not what happens in an afterlife, but rather on the coming of justice to this world.

The first candle of the Advent wreath that we light today has also been called the prophet’s candle. It is traditional to read words from Isaiah or Jeremiah on the first Sunday of Advent. Todays’ message of the prophet in the Revised Common Lectionary is about the coming of justice and righteousness:

“The days are surely coming, says YHWH, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David, and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In those days Judah will be saved, and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is the name by which it will be called: ‘YHWH is our righteousness.” (Jeremiah 33:14-16)

Advent hope is not the hope of heavenly reward, but rather the belief that God is engaged in the everyday operation of this world. Injustice is not forever a part of this world. Human empires are temporary. Justice and righteousness are coming to this world.

The message of the prophets was deeply ingrained in the community into which Jesus was born. The first hearers of the Gospel message were faithful Jews who grew up steeped in the history of the Exile - a period of 70 years when many of the people of Israel were forced into refugee status and carried away from their homeland into Babylon beginning nearly 600 years before the birth of Jesus. What they learned from the history of exile and from the words of the prophets is that the power of human governments is temporary. The oppression of empire is temporary. Just because the people suffer a political or military defeat does not mean that God has abandoned them. God is still on the side of human freedom and justice and freedom and justice will prevail in the long run.

Advent hope is hope for a better life for those who have become victims of politics and governments. It is hope that refugees will find homes, that victims will experience justice, that impoverished people will be given sufficient food and shelter. It is practical hope for those who have been marginalized by the cycles of human power, corruption, and greed. We light the prophet’s candle as a symbol that we hope for a better world.

Hope is much more than a puff of emotion. Part of the reason that we begin each year with hope and return to hope each Advent is that we need to practice hope in a world that is often eager to crush hope. Hope is active participation in the bringing of justice and life to this world. Hope inspires us to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, provide care to those who are sick, visit those who are imprisoned, and stand with the victims of injustice. Hope is working for justice despite the presence of injustice, working for freedom for all despite autocrats and empires. Hope is daring to live in balance with the world and fairness with our neighbors.

Hope is where we begin.

Our beliefs about God, the world, and ourselves can be a source of agency to act. Hope comes from our story that one life can make a difference in this world. Anchored in the reality of this world, we are not always optimistic. Hope is not the same as optimism. Hope is the understanding that we can face challenges and difficult circumstances without becoming bitter, discouraged, or despairing.

Today we begin again with hope in our current embodied lives. We affirm our belief that our actions can make good things happen. We assert our conviction that we have a role to play in this life that goes beyond anticipating. Our belief that good things are yet to come urges us to engage in the process of making good things happen now.

May we open our lives to hope this day.