The First Day of Advent

 

My New Year 2024 begins today—the First Sunday of Advent.  I will light the first candle on the Advent wreath this evening. With the lighting that candle I will begin to prepare myself for the Christmas Promise—that Christ might be born in the Bethlehem of my heart in some new way.

Advent is the beginning of my new year, because….

Advent is a very special time... a time of promise

     it is a time of preparation for the new about to happen

     it is a time of new beginnings

Advent is a time of expectancy...a time of happenings  

    annunciations are heard if ears are opened   

    dreams are dreamed and guidance given

Advent is a time of giving birth to God

     we carry God around with us and do not know it 

      it is a time for a new birth within.  

Advent is a time of waiting, waiting

     for mountains to be brought down; hills to be brought low

     for valleys to be lifted up; crooked places to be made straight

 Advent is a time of moving...a time of transition

     it is not a movement backward, but forward  

     it is moving me, you, and the world to a place it has never been

Advent is about newness...a time for the "New Things"

     it is a season of receptivity and openness

     it is a time of new vulnerability for me, for you, for God 

Advent announces a Way...a time of new dreams

   it is a time to sing our own song, dance our own dance

   it is a time of searching and for finding

Advent is all of the above...it is kairos time

   it is a good time to start anew, to begin again.

   Advent is the time to follow your star. 

         

      

A Smooth Return

We are home after our jaunt across the pond and our 9-day visit in Howden in the United Kingdom.  We had a wonderful time visiting Katie, Liam and my two great granddaughters:  Elodie and Rosalie. There were no delays, no re-bookings, and no change in  flight schedules on our return trip.  We left Manchester yesterday at noon, arrived in Atlanta, passed through customs, and caught our flight to Philadelphia without a single glitch.  My faithful friends, Adam and Sheila, were there to pick us up and drive us home.  We arrived at 11 PM and were greeted by a sign in the kitchen (and a full fridge) welcoming our safe return.  It was a long, long day for us!  John at 83, and "yours truly" at 80, managed just fine even though we were both suffering from some kind of flu or cold bug.  

We weren't as spry this trip as we were on the last one in November 2022, but we DID IT, HANDLED IT, and ENJOYED IT!  Why, we might even go on a cruise together in early 2024!  Just want you to know...no one of us is ever too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream, or to venture into new territory.  These can be DONE, and HANDLED, and ENJOYED!

The End of A ‘Oliday

We’ve had a lovely Holiday (vacation) in the village of Howden in East Yorkshire.  Now it is time to say “goodbye” to the United Kingdom and return to our homeland.  Katie, Liam, Elodie and Rosalie came to our “Oliday Ome” for lunch today.  (My great granddaughter has a Yorkshire accent and drops the “H” in “Holiday Home.”)  We said “goodbye” to all except Liam, who will drive us to Manchester tomorrow.  Goodbyes are never easy.  Is it even possible for a 3-year old little girl to understand such a concept as “goodbye?”  Of course, it isn’t!  Why, I confess that even I, an 80-year old, find it hard to grasp the concept. 

Words and phrases evolve over the years and take on new meaning.  In the 13th century, the word “nice” meant “silly, or “ignorant.”  The word “egregious” now means “really bad,” but use to mean “remarkably good.”  The word “goodbye” was first used in a 1573 letter written by an English scholar:  “To requite your gallonde (gallon) of godbwyes, I regive you a pottle of howdyes.”  “Godbwye” is a contraction for “God be with ye.”  What does it mean to say:  “God be with thee?”  God be with thee, Katie, Liam, Elodie and Rosalie!  God be with thee United Kingdom!

This Imperfect World..

Not everything works perfectly at home or away from home.  We started our UK holiday with flight delays and cancellations.  We ended up in London instead of Manchester.  But, Liam was there waiting for us, driving us a long distance in the rain to our AirBnB, which was all set for our arrival.  Some things work.  Some things do not.  In an imperfect world there is no guarantee for things to go right—and there is no guarantee for things to go wrong.  There is no guarantee for anything at all.  The sun has been shining 80 percent of our time in Howden; rain has been minimal.  That’s good!  The temperature has been in the mid-60-degrees almost every day.  That’s good!   We’ve had a wonderful time with family—no hiccups.  That’s good!  You see, even in an imperfect world, with no guarantees, there is a certain joy in being “alive” in it!  In such an imperfect world, I fit in perfectly!

The Special Day Has Arrived

Katie and I were talking on the phone back in February.  She told me Elodie was wondering why her Grandad did not pick her up after school.  That was the moment I decided to make this present trip back to England—for the sole purpose of being available to pick Elodie up from school.  Today that is going to happen!

Immediately after that February telephone call with Katie, I called my brother to see if he might want to travel with me again.  He called back the next morning saying “Yes!”  And here we are!  TODAY I will pick Elodie up from school.

Photos of my great grandchildren are not posted on social media.  Last year, however, I posted a photo of Elodie’s “little Red Shoes.”  I do so again, because those little Red Shoes speak volumes… 

“In fact, the red shoes are never tired.  They dance her out into the street, they acne hr over the mountains and valleys, through fields and forests, through night and day.  Time rushes by, love rushes by, life rushes by, but the red shoes go on…”

Saturday/Sunday Adventures in Howden

Katie and family visited us at our “oliday ‘ome” on Saturday.  Mandy, Liam’s Mum, also stopped by.  We were also able to connect with Liam’s sister, Micky, via Facetime. We had a wonderful “Fish & Chip” lunch together and enjoyed a walk in the village park.  Later, John and I went to the Wellington Pub/Restaurant and enjoyed their homemade “Steak & Guinness Pie.”  Delicious!

After a leisurely breakfast at our AirBnB (‘oliday ‘ome) this morning, we walked to the village centre and enjoyed a cappuccino at Badger & Bean (and a lemon drizzle cake for John).  At noon we were picked up by Liam  and spent a nice afternoon—including a delicious Sunday Roast lunch—at Katie and Liam’s lovely home in Gilberdyke (5 miles from Howden).  You should see Elodie on the trampoline—or Rosalie taking her faltering steps!  What a wonderful “Holiday” we are experiencing here in Howden!  Special moments with some very special people—“kairos” time!

Ginger’s On Saturday Morning

If ever you come to Howden—We recommend Ginger’s as the place to go on a Saturday morning.  Apparently many of the local folk would say the same.  We saw many of them there.  I like the Cappuccino.  John likes the Latte.  We both liked the carrot cake.  But most of all we enjoyed watching the village come alive on a Saturday morning—mothers with their children in strollers, guys and gals out jogging or cycling, others going to the grocery store, and others out walking their dogs, and some at the butcher shop, etc. etc.  Life on a Saturday morning in Howden is like “Life on a Saturday morning” anywhere else in this wonderful world.  But not every place has a Ginger’s!

Ain’t No Mountain High Enough

Yesterday I shared the obstacles, challenges and setbacks my brother John and I experienced on our way to the United Kingdom to visit my granddaughter Katie’s family.  After being with Liam, Katie, Elodie and Rosalie at their home yesterday I really want to shout out:  “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough. Ain’t No Valley Low Enough.  Ain’t No River Wide Enough”… to keep me from visiting Katie, Liam, and my great granddaughters, Elodie and Rosalie!   Ain’t no flight delays.  Ain’t no travel woes.  Ain’t no “age” being too old …to keep me away!

Elodie will be four-years old in November.  Rosalie was actually celebrating her 14-month birthday yesterday.  I last saw them in November 2022.  There are no words to describe the “feelings” I felt in being able to be with them again.  (Awe?  Wonder? Jubilant?  Gratitude? — Nope!).  Ain’t no word big enough, or wide enough,  or deep enough, to describe the “Great Grandad feelings” of being with them.

John and I walked in Howden last night passing by the ruins of the “Minster”— and through the beautifully preserved town center with narrow cobbled streets and restored buildings—to a wonderful little Italian restaurant we enjoyed on our last visit.  As we strolled along, the words of Isaac Watts hymn, “O God, Our Help in Ages Past” kept singing within—“Time, like an ever-rolling stream…, Time, like an ever-rolling stream…”—reminding  me again how important it is to use the time I have to visit my granddaughter and great granddaughters in the UK.  Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.  Ain’t No Valley Low Enough.  Ain’t No River Wide Enough…Ain’t No Age too Old...!  

  

Crossing the Big Pond

 My brother and I set off on Tuesday morning for the UK.  Our flight from Philadelphia to Atlanta was scuttled after several hours sitting onboard with our fingers crossed.  (Fingers crossed didn’t make any difference!). Missing our first flight,  we also missed our connection from Atlanta to Manchester, UK.  But, after standing in line with the other 200 stranded passengers for several hours we were able to re-book.  We discovered upon finally arriving in Atlanta, that our newly-booked flight to London (instead of Manchester) at 9:55 PM had been delayed until 12:30 AM.  Being the intrepid travelers that we are—we readily adapted to this new development (since there was absolutely nothing we could do about it).

At 1 AM (Wednesday morning) we finally boarded our flight to London—arriving Heathrow on Wednesday afternoon at 1 PM (some six hours later than planned, and arriving in London instead of Manchester).  Granddaughter Katie’s husband, Liam, was there to meet us and drive us to our “Oliday ‘Ome” (as great granddaughter, Elodie, named our AirBnB last November).

This quaint townhouse in Howden really did seem like home when we arrived.  Katie had a dinner prepared (all we had to do was put it in the Microwave). Liam made a quick trip to the store for this morning’s breakfast needs.  Oh, how spoiled we are!  And quite content to be so!

Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday—day three!  Today we will have lunch with Katie, Liam, Elodie and Rosalie at their home in Gilberdyke.  Can’t wait to see Katie and my beautiful “great” granddaughters.

  

 

When I Was Seventeen....

I started school early, entering kindergarten at age four.  (This was for a very practical reason.  My mother had two younger children to care for.  Three little ones at home was just too much).  I moved forward each successive year and became a high school senior at the age of sixteen.  (All of my classmates, with the exception of one, were either 17 or 18 as they began their senior year and all had their driver’s license).  

In February of that senior year, I celebrated my 17th birthday and finally got my driver’s license in April.  The license didn’t do much for me, because we only had one car, which was used daily by my Dad to go to and from his work.  

My goal was to attend college.  I applied to four different schools and was accepted by three, in spite of my average grades.  My older sister was in college at the time. My older brother had enlisted in  the Navy two years before.  My parents urged me to join the military, because they could not afford “two” in college.  (By that time, they were the parents of seven kids!)

The National Defense Education Act of 1958 (student loan program) was just getting off the ground.  In fact, my sister, was enrolled in the program, and I figured I could do the same.  However, there was also the Selective Service, better known as the military draft.  Young men of 18 years of age, who were not farmers or college students, were  subject to being “drafted” (involuntarily) into the Army for two years.  Even Elvis Presley, in spite of his fame, was drafted in 1958 and spent two years in the Army.  

I graduated high school in early June.  I tried to find a job (without having any skill, or a car to get to and from a job).  Everywhere I went, I was encouraged to get my military service out of the way first.  No one wanted to hire an unskilled 17-year old, who would probably be drafted in a year!   My parents were urging me to do the same.  Unable to get a job, discouraged about finding the funds needed for college,  I finally ended up at the Air Force Recruiting Office.

Sixty-three years ago, today, July 11 (1960)  I was on my way to Texas and basic training…when I was 17!  When I retired in April 1999 as an Air Force Reserve Chaplain, my father told the Base Commander:  “I don’t know what would have happened to Harold, if it hadn’t been for the Air Force.”

Happy Birthday to Austin and Nick

I am “Grandad” to four grandsons and two granddaughters.  What a joy it has been, and still is, to be a grandad.

Last Saturday I attended Austin and Nick’s birthday party.  They were born on the same day—two years apart.  They are Paul and Helen’s sons.  Now, in my mind, Paul and Helen are still in their 30’s, even though Austin is now 27 and Nick is 25.  I know that doesn’t compute, but I was never much of a mathematician.  

Paul, Helen, Austin and Nick

Grandma and Austin

Grandma and Nick 

Happy Birthday, Austin and Nick.  

Independence is Dependence

 "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men (all races, creeds, genders, ages, etc.) are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..."

My "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" and your's is dependent upon our seeing and accepting all persons as created equal..."endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights."  My independence, your independence, and the nation's independence is dependent upon securing "these truths."

In order to attain "these truths" for all people, we have instituted a government "of the people, for the people and by the people."  This government derives its "just powers" with our consent.  Such government is dependent upon us (or is supposed to be...)...and we are dependent upon that government to ensure both our own unalienable rights and the unalienable rights of all our citizens are honored.

While It Is Day: What Do You See?

 “Hope is a form of faith and tends to produce what it sees.  Despair is a form of faith and tends to produce what it sees.”  (N. Gordon Cosby)

What do you see?  The ancient prophet recorded God saying, “Where there is no vision, the people perish” (Proverbs 29:18).  But just what “vision” do you see, observe, or perceive?  Is everything going to hell in a bread basket?  Is the future anything to look forward too?  Despair feels that it is useless to attempt to change things.  Our best efforts to make this world a better place will come to nothing.  What’s the use of trying?  “Despair is a form of faith and tends to produce what it sees.”

Vision, in the biblical sense, is the capacity to see that which ought to be but is not yet.  What do you see?  Do you see “Love” at the heart of things?  Do you see a world in which brothers and sisters, regardless of differences, live together in harmony?  Can you perceive what most Christians pray for through the  Lord’s Prayer?  “Thy Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.”   Do you believe such a vision—so different from what is—is real? This vision is not about some “pie in the sky” afterlife—it is about God’s kingdom coming here, where we live, work, play, and suffer.  “Even now it is breaking forth from the bud.  Can you not perceive it?” “Hope is a form of faith and tends to produce what it sees.”  

Pondering God? Which One?

Harry Emerson Fosdick tells of a young girl who was very troubled by some passages in the Old Testament where God commanded Saul to smite the Amalekites, and “not spare them, but kill both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.”  So the girl’s father read to her some passages from the later Hebrew prophets—such as “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God”—and from the New Testament:  “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God.”  The girl sat silent for a moment and then said, “Daddy, God grew better as he got older, didn’t he?”  

Has your God grown better as you have grown older?  Are you seeing the God of the Old Testament or the God of the New Testament? No intelligent person can retain faith in God unless his or her God does grow better, as that person, gets older.  The old covenant has been superseded by a NEW ONE!   God has grown better.  

No Place for Christian Snobbishness

 Church folk continue to ignore this fact:  “The Christian Church is a society of sinners.  It is the only society in the world, membership in which is based upon the single qualification that the candidate shall be unworthy of membership.”  (Charles C. Morrison, What Is Christianity).

To be a member of the Church then, does not put you above anyone else, nor does it make you better than anyone else.

Let's Party!

Last month I became an octogenarian. I threw a big party to celebrate my 80th year and my fifty -plus years of ministry in this community. About 80 people gathered in my home on that Sunday afternoon to party with me. It was wonderful! 

“It seems as though we homo sapiens are possessed by a compulsion to complain,” my friend George Prettyman at the age of 79 wrote in his 1991 newspaper column. “The weather, for one thing. The price of groceries…or gasoline…or fish…whatever. And if there’s nothing better to fuss about, we gripe about having recorded a number of years on our lifometer. Yes, we complain about getting older when it ought to be obvious that the alternative is pretty grim.”

The one thing I fear in this new chapter of life is not that grim alternative which will come eventually. What I fear most is becoming a “grumpy old man!” I don’t want to be a person who always sees the glass as half empty. I don’t want to sit on my duff and complain about the world situation or about the degeneration of the new generation of youth. I don’t want to dwell on the “Yesterday when I was young” as some kind of idyllic time. It wasn’t! In spite of some creaks in my joints, and some “forgetfulness,” I don’t want to harp on that kind of thing either. Nor, do I want to be a person who goes around saying “Jesus will take care of everything” and ignore reality and my own personal responsibility to make a difference.

Let’s party! We’ve been invited. We’re wanted at this party—a “Pourer of New Wine” will be there. Those of us who come to this grace-party will be inebriated—“sanely intoxicated” (as Keating wrote). We will be drinking the wine of a new and heightened life. That’s what I want in my eightieth year—“a new and heightened life!” It can be so, I am told, if I go to the party.

Paul's Birthday

Today is my eldest son’s birthday.  Paul was born in “Almost heaven, West Virginia” (“Blue Ridge mountains, Shenandoah river.  Life is old there, older than the trees, Younger than the mountains, growin’ like a breeze”).  I was a junior in college at the time.  We lived in a 35-foot trailer on the college campus.  Paul’s first bedroom was a wardrobe closet where the “porta-crib” just barely fit.  He didn’t seem to mind and somehow we managed to live together quite happily. Paul’s sons, Austin and Nick, have enjoyed teasing their dad about being born in a “trailer park” in West Virginia.  Today, Austin and his wife, Katie, actually live in West Virginia—but not in a trailer park!

“Swiftly flow the days…Wasn’t it only yesterday when he was small?  Swiftly fly the years.”  What joy we knew when unto us a son was born, a gift given, and the gift named, Paul, on February 26, 1966!   That same joy marks this day, February 26, 2023.  Happy Birthday, Paul!

Paul, Rachel, "Dad at 80" and Luke

 

Paul in that "little" trailer

Paul and his "Mom"

Paul and Helen

Paul with his sons:  Austin and Nick

Unto us a son is born...we named the gift, Paul.