In my last post, around Thanksgiving time, I talked about books that foster change. I have discovered some resources while clearing out my condo in preparation for my move to Tel Hai with my new husband. They come from the Southern Poverty Law Center in Birmingham, Alabama. Teaching Peace is a theme that permeates them. Check out the website. They do important work and deserve our support.
One week ago today Tom McLay and I were married. We had a weekend full of celebrations with family from all over — my siblings and son and granddaughters from western Pennsylvania and Ohio, and Tom's relatives from Texas, Colorado, and Virginia, as well as the fairly local children and grandchildren. Such a disparate group, and how we enjoyed each other! We partied from Friday through Sunday. The whole event seemed perfect. At least we will remember it as such.
I have such a sense of God's abundant blessings poured out, heaped up and running over. I feel enormous gratitude. My prayer, waking and sleeping, goes, "Thank you, thank you, thank you."
At the Christmas Eve service last night, I welled up at the memory of my father taking me to my first midnight service. I recalled my awe, my reverence, the absolute sense of coming home the liturgy engendered. That eight-year-old could not have imagined the decades-long journey she would take. Looking back, I can only say, "Thanks be to God."
May all who read this have a blessed Christmas.
