Beloved:

      Mine has been an extraordinary season of  family, friends, great food and a bittersweet loss.  Having all three kids and two extra students (now adopted sons) from Wabash has made my heart very happy.  I love Christmas cards and our habit of trading treats with favorite neighbors.  The bittersweet came the day after Christmas when our ten-year-old golden retriever, Cody, died. (Cody Update, 11/5/13)  He was kind and brave to the end but suffering too much.  He came to us as a puppy when Ben turned eight years old.  How my heart broke to watch my man-child son carry his beloved friend from the car to lay him gently on the veterinarian’s table to be put down.  Even Rosie Cotton, the other golden, is not herself without him.  I think she’d having an identity crisis, having never been an only dog.  

    Still, as another year begins I’ve nothing of consequence to grieve.  All of mine are healthy and prosperous enough.  We have food, work, companionship, and a peaceful home.  We want for nothing necessary.  Our griefs are most consolable and our enemies made of our own vices.  Faith is more constant than spoken yet always in the mix  as we live our days.  

    I pray the day and this new year find you content, peaceful, grateful, and full of joy.  ~ peace & prayers, pastor annette

Beloved:

    Wunderground.com predictions of 50 degree temps at week’s end do not please me.  The dogs have churned and soiled the snow but at least the yard is still frozen.  By Saturday my floors will be a muddy mess and the dogs will live in the laundry room.  Not exactly the white Christmas for which I was dreaming.  

    Truth be told, I miss Erma Bombeck.  Her columns cracked me up when I was a teenager. I wish she was doing the voice over to my home life, instead of Martha Stewart.  Erma would nod compassionately at the muddy floors, the dining room table buried in gift wrap and shopping bags, the unsent Christmas cards, the unplanned Christmas dinner, the half knit niece gifts, my honest to goodness intention to have people over and hand out little homemade treats to each and every one.  She would never, ever repeat my high School Sunday School teacher’s favorite quote, “The streets of hell are paved with good intentions.”  

    The best part of Christmas 2013 won’t be presents or food or decorations but having all three kids piled on the couch at the same time.  I intend to sit in my chair and look at them, for hours and hours if they’ll let me.  They’ll only be home together a few days and I’ll get sad about that now if I’m not careful. Therein is the poignancy of the season every year I suppose, how it reminds us of the fleetingness of beauty, of all the best things.  Maybe Christmas is more memory than anything else.  We live on the memories so year by year we do our best to add to the reel.  

    Incarnation we call it ~ God becoming one of us - like us in every way, family being the first.  I like imagining Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus, their little cocoon of warmth and joy in a very scary world, a memory that carried them to Egypt and back.  This thought strengthens me a bit, helps me embrace and enjoy what matters most this season; mine are here and healthy and together.  Our kids treasure one another which is joy beyond compare for their dad and me.  Where all else fails perfection this does not, Incarnation among us once again.  ~peace & prayers, pastor annette