Dear Friends,
It’s difficult to get into the spirit of Christmas when the temperture is still in the 70’s and low 80’s! Even after these 17 years in Houston, we continue to be amazed at the lack of correlation between what we experience and what we remember. However, given the aging process, itself, there seems to be an on-going difficulty to coordinate what we do now with what we remember from five minutes ago.
There are other reasons, too, that make it difficult to enter fully into the joy of Christmas. They also relate to the aging process. During the past months, several of our good friends have returned to God. Karen’s father died very recently in Ohio, after a long illness. His passing now completes the transition of the last of our ancestors to a new life in the Kingdom. Yet we rejoice not only in their gift of life to us but even more in the gift of new life seen in our own grandchildren.
This past spring, in mid-April, Kennedy Lane joined her sister, Kirby Michele, in the life of Chris and Kelly. The event, as we promised last year, occurred at a time not to interfer too greatly with Chris and Kelly’s teaching. They still are involved in biology and mathematics in addition to raising two daughters. Somehow it all fits together.
Ken and Tracy have the pleasure of raising (or being razed by) two active sons: Jordan Michael, a talkative three pluser, and Dillon Andrew, a running two, capable of outdistancing twenty! Ken escapes to his computer at work and Tracy keeps going and going and going. Perhaps we all could use new energizers.
With Deb and Joe returning from Colorado to San Antonio last year, we have had more opportunities to visit with them. Although their respective libraries keep them occupied, they still get to the Cowboy games in Dallas. Karen even spent a weekend in Dallas with Deb to see one of the games. When you live in Houston, you do anything to see real football!
The two of us, however, have once again traveled farther afield than Dallas or San Antonio. Although our original vacation plans called for us to return to the Pacific Northwest where we once lived, we found ourselves back in Europe. This time it was part of an eighteen-day bus tour. We hover-crafted from England to France and were driven to Paris (magnificent at night) and on to Avignon (where Pat soaked up medieval history). Then on to Pisa (the tower still stands) and to Siena (another wonderful old, walled city) and Rome. Yes, this was our second trip to Rome; once (or even twice) is not enough. This time we had a very enjoyable day with a young priest friend who had just arrived for three years of study in theology. We then went to Florence, with insufficient time to see the museums, and on to Venice (the pigeons really do take over St Mark’s Square). Since that wasn’t enough to overload our senses, except for our common senses, we continued to Lucerne Switzerland and the Rhine Valley before returning to Amsterdam and London (with an extra day in Canterbury, since British Airways’ schedule precluded a same-day connection). We arrived in Houston exhausted, with a hope that someday we could return in a more leisurely fashion to Tuscany.
Within a week of our return to Houston, we waited out our “annual” flood waters. Although much of Houston was flooded, our house lucked out with the rising waters coming only ten feet from our front door. We have some great home-video to go with the still pictures taken in Venice.
So these are our memories for this last year. The usual mixture of sadness and joy. Each one has an appropriate place in God’s dreams for us. We pray that your own memories and hopes bring you the peace and good tidings caroled out two thousand years ago.