I happened across this as it flew by my Facebook feed on a Christmas Eve sixteen years after writing it in 2008. This is among the first of my Christmas greetings from the farm!
It’s Christmas Eve on the farm. My father, Jocelyn and I were in our pajamas by 8 pm after a day of visiting family and what seemed like an endless stream of friends dropping by their marvelous holiday treats. The farm has become quite a focal point of neighborly affection for my father. No Saline Township widower in recent memory has received the outpouring of support that he has!
We had a grand dinner at home this year – my sister having sent out some fine steaks from Colorado (my apologies to you vegetarians out there!). After the meal and a simple gift exchange, Joce and my dad sat down for a game of cribbage as I took rest in a comfortable chair by the west window, facing the woods, and pondered the activity of the past few days. The warm rain and mist of the day that made all of the snow so treacherous has given way to a bracing wind and gunmetal gray skies.
As the winter night settled in and the cribbage game was decided, Jocelyn remarked with some irony how tired she was. As I nodded in agreement, I had to wonder if my fatigue was from the day or from the whirlwind year that was mine and that of my community. At no time in my life have I seen such extremes of adventure, wonder, sadness and terror as I have in the past twelve months.
There have been many challenges this year; and I’ll spare you their enumeration. Suffice it to say that the realms of economics, politics, relationship and careers – all of them, at one time or another, have been used to draw tidy lines around our identity and build tidy walls of self-sufficiency between us and the wild, ultimate Good that desires our relationship and consideration. Those pillars of our identity have been systematically pulled down. And in the face of a future that clearly demands some hard personal choices and choices that may ultimately be forced upon us, our collective mood of late has been particularly… wintry.
It has been five months and twenty two days since I lost the most important woman in my life. My mother has gone to be with the Lord; the six year battle with her stroke finally concluded. But in God’s steely goodness, a new “most important woman in my life” was graciously provided in my wife Jocelyn. And as I watch my father’s mournfulness ebb and flow, I have loved seeing his face warm as he and my wife laugh their way through the simple pleasure of a game of cribbage after a satisfying meal. There is joy in the present even as we shake off the sadness of the past and contend with the chill of an uncertain future – a joy that remains even in the most dire circumstances. The joy of Love made flesh that we celebrate this season. The fact remains – even amid our fear – that God entered history from eternity to reconcile us to himself. And in a life that is totally surrendered to that ultimate good, nothing is missing.
It was a marvelous poem by Longfellow called A Psalm of Life that brought this into clarity for me. I stumbled across it quite accidentally in the sitting room of my aunt’s house this afternoon as we spoke lovingly in quiet tones about an ache here, an inconvenience there. I humbly offer a few of its stanzas to you in encouragement for the time to come:
In the world’s broad field of battle, In the bivouac of life, Be not like the dumb, driven cattle! Be a hero in the strife! Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant! Let the dead Past bury its dead! Act, – act with the living Present! Heart within, and God o’erhead! Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime And, departing, leave behind us, Footprints on the sands of time. Footprints, that perhaps another, Sailing o’er life’s solemn main, A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, Seeing, shall take heart again. Let us then be up and doing, With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to wait.
~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
It is RIGHT NOW that we have; to love, to offer comfort and encouragement. And right now, we must take heart in God’s goodness, submit ourselves to that goodness and pour it out to the world. As vessels of that goodness – ambassadors in lands unknown – I take heart in the goodness that would step down from heavenly majesty and place itself into the shaking hands of a teenage girl and her new husband. Be well this season. Rest well and luxuriate in the love that simply will not be silent; and prepare yourselves for the adventure that awaits us.
I give God thanks for all that you do, and wish you all the best for Christmas.
Christmas Greetings from the Farm
Hello Friends –
It’s Christmas Eve on the farm. My father, Jocelyn and I were in our pajamas by 8 pm after a day of visiting family and what seemed like an endless stream of friends dropping by their marvelous holiday treats. The farm has become quite a focal point of neighborly affection for my father. No Saline Township widower in recent memory has received the outpouring of support that he has!
We had a grand dinner at home this year – my sister having sent out some fine steaks from Colorado (my apologies to you vegetarians out there!). After the meal and a simple gift exchange, Joce and my dad sat down for a game of cribbage as I took rest in a comfortable chair by the west window, facing the woods, and pondered the activity of the past few days. The warm rain and mist of the day that made all of the snow so treacherous has given way to a bracing wind and gunmetal gray skies.
As the winter night settled in and the cribbage game was decided, Jocelyn remarked with some irony how tired she was. As I nodded in agreement, I had to wonder if my fatigue was from the day or from the whirlwind year that was mine and that of my community. At no time in my life have I seen such extremes of adventure, wonder, sadness and terror as I have in the past twelve months.
There have been many challenges this year; and I’ll spare you their enumeration. Suffice it to say that the realms of economics, politics, relationship and careers – all of them, at one time or another, have been used to draw tidy lines around our identity and build tidy walls of self-sufficiency between us and the wild, ultimate Good that desires our relationship and consideration. Those pillars of our identity have been systematically pulled down. And in the face of a future that clearly demands some hard personal choices and choices that may ultimately be forced upon us, our collective mood of late has been particularly… wintry.
It has been five months and twenty two days since I lost the most important woman in my life. My mother has gone to be with the Lord; the six year battle with her stroke finally concluded. But in God’s steely goodness, a new “most important woman in my life” was graciously provided in my wife Jocelyn. And as I watch my father’s mournfulness ebb and flow, I have loved seeing his face warm as he and my wife laugh their way through the simple pleasure of a game of cribbage after a satisfying meal. There is joy in the present even as we shake off the sadness of the past and contend with the chill of an uncertain future – a joy that remains even in the most dire circumstances. The joy of Love made flesh that we celebrate this season. The fact remains – even amid our fear – that God entered history from eternity to reconcile us to himself. And in a life that is totally surrendered to that ultimate good, nothing is missing.
It was a marvelous poem by Longfellow called A Psalm of Life that brought this into clarity for me. I stumbled across it quite accidentally in the sitting room of my aunt’s house this afternoon as we spoke lovingly in quiet tones about an ache here, an inconvenience there. I humbly offer a few of its stanzas to you in encouragement for the time to come:
It is RIGHT NOW that we have; to love, to offer comfort and encouragement. And right now, we must take heart in God’s goodness, submit ourselves to that goodness and pour it out to the world. As vessels of that goodness – ambassadors in lands unknown – I take heart in the goodness that would step down from heavenly majesty and place itself into the shaking hands of a teenage girl and her new husband. Be well this season. Rest well and luxuriate in the love that simply will not be silent; and prepare yourselves for the adventure that awaits us.
I give God thanks for all that you do, and wish you all the best for Christmas.