John 1:1-18 (links validated on 12/05/23)

A year and a day ago – Christmas Eve 2022- my brother Craig obliterated the bar for Christmas gifts in the Chern family. All of us adults, myself, my Mom, my other brother Chris, and sister-in-law Mairead, knew what was coming for my three nieces. Craig had kindly provided some bogus story to my nieces about how he foolishly had left his home, forgetting their gifts behind, and would make sure they got them in a few days – just so the rest of us could exchange our gifts, knowing that he was going to bring a tsunami of reactions -which was pretty much spot on. When he revealed that, after hours of walking around all day with his laptop in hand, he had actually gotten them 6 tickets to see Taylor Swift, that most definitely blew their minds. In the chaos of screams, texting the news, and immediate discussions about whom each of them would bring with them to see this concert, it overshadowed any and every other gift that was given to my nieces that night. Honestly, I couldn’t tell you what I got for them last Christmas. Part of the excitement for them was the thrill of knowing they were going but then having to wait another five months till the actual concert. It was beautiful to see how excited they were and equally touching when they insisted they wanted their Uncle Craig and their parents to come with them. Side note: when Uncle Craig called Uncle Jim to apologize to me for being left out and how terrible he felt that it was never his intention and that maybe he could find a single ticket so I could join them, I assured him that my not having a ticket was gift enough. It was gift enough to see them all deliriously happy and excited, and no offense to Swifties, I was okay with not going myself. Just a few weeks ago, when we were all last together for Thanksgiving, someone said, “It’s going to be hard to top last Christmas,” referring to this gift. Which, on a certain level, is understandable. For three teenage girls, after all the hype and attention, to be able to go to “the event” of the year was an incredible high. It was really special to see how happy my brother was revealing the gift, knowing how appreciated it was and he was, that they insisted he come with them. But all of that is now something in the past, a memory. A happy moment in time. Something that, fairly or not, Christmases and Christmas gifts to come will be compared to. It happens to many of us...

Many Decembers ago, a man was in his study at home when his kids came into the room. "Dad, we have a play to put on? Do you want to see it?" He didn't really want to, but he knew he needed to, so he followed them into the living room and became a one-man audience. At the foot of the piano stool was a lighted flashlight wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a shoe box. Joseph came in wearing his father’s bathrobe and carrying a mop handle staff. Mary wore a sheet draped over her head. The 4-year-old was an angel with who ran in with pillowcases over her arms which she spread as wings. Finally, the last child arrived, obviously one of the magi. She moved like she was riding a camel, probably from trying to walk in her mother’s high heels. She was wearing all the wearing all the jewelry she could find and on a pillow she carried three items. She clip-clopped across the room, bowed to the flashlight, and announced, “I’m all three wise men. I bring precious gifts: gold, circumstance and mud.” That was all. The play was over. The father applauded, but he didn’t laugh. He didn’t correct the wise man. That child got to the heart of the story: God loves us for who we are; gold –when we are at our best, circumstance – in the particulars of time, place and custom, and mud – in the messiest parts of our lives...

Tonight, at the top of the twenty-four story high-rise in North Kensington, West London, a banner – six stories tall – wraps around all four sides of the building. The banner reads, “Grenfell: Forever in Our Hearts.” Grenfell Tower is still clad in white plastic sheeting. Five years ago, on June 14, a fire broke out in Grenfell Tower. It was England’s deadliest residential fire since World War II. Seventy-two residents and firefighters lost their lives. The fire spread with haste due to the lax building regulations which allowed builders to use an especially flammable material for the tower’s façade. An American company, Arconic, sold the material to the construction company despite knowing the risks their product posed. High rents, a lack of affordable housing, inadequate public housing meant that Grenfell Tower was overcrowded with occupants. Edward Daffern, a retired activist who had lived in Grenfell Tower for seventeen years, told the NY Times, “This was a whole community that was being treated with injustice and discrimination.” For instance, the tower, whose residents were primarily working class and immigrants, had only a single staircase and no sprinklers and fire alarms. The sole elevator in the high-rise had been broken for as long as anyone could remember. Natasha Elcock lived on the top floor of Grenfell Tower. After the fire, she says, she was left all alone, forced to fend for herself as the local government had taken no measures to provide temporary housing. Another resident, Bellal El Guenuni, who lived in the tower with his wife and three young children, explained to a reporter saying, “In low-income housing, I think there’s an element of ‘Be grateful for what you’ve got. Keep your mouth shut and don’t rock the boat.’”...

(always good insights!)

always good insights!

always good insights

(always good insights!)

always good insights!

("Each Day; each generation; each child; is a new being. And in the act of creation, the potter also is being born, more and more with each clay creation. This is true as well for composers, painters, parents. And it is true for God – who is becoming while calling forth. And this is given in the only name God has owned: I Am Who I Am Becoming...")

The Greek word John uses for “lived” or “dwelt” among us is “iskenosen” (iskenosen) which is literally translated as “tabernacled.” The tabernacle, if you’ll recall from Exodus, was a big tent. Basically, Jesus came to share our tent. Any Boy Scout knows how close you get to someone when you share the same tent. It creates a really special relationship when, for survival’s sake, you share limited shelter which you know will not be permanent. That’s kind of how we are with Jesus. He came to join us in our temporary tent. We saw him weep in compassion, feel pity and have mercy, grant forgiveness, and accept those who were deemed unacceptable. In these very human acts, we got a glimpse of God’s holiness. Indeed, when we see Jesus’ humanity, his sacrificial suffering and love, we are really seeing his divinity...

Lauren Winner reflected on this passage a few years ago. Along with making a connection to a storyline from the Netflix series The Crown, she writes: The Incarnation is like a chef, who so loves the meal she is creating that she actually becomes a dish of mashed potatoes? The Incarnation is like a master gardener, who so loves her garden that she finds, finally, that she has become a rose bush? Or the Incarnation is like a Queen, who is so devoted to her people that finally she comes down from the upper reaches of the palace and goes to them. None of these is perfect, but all of them show something. I can imagine that gardener as a character in an ancient fairy tale or a 21st-century novel of magical realism—the gardener whose love of her roses gradually (over nine months, say) converts her limbs and torso into a deep green and turns her head into a thousand silky petals; the gardener whose love eventually pulls her into the soil with all the rose bushes she’s tended all those years. I would understand, if I read that novel, that the gardener’s incarnation as a rose had come about because of and through her devoted love for and identification with her roses. And then I would wonder: After all these years of reading the Christmas story, do I really understand that Christmas is because God loves us that much, too?

I thought of the well known poem by Dorothy Nolte, and thought that s few lines, (slightly altered) would be pertinent: “If a child lives with criticism, he learns to condemn. If a child lives with shame, she learns to feel guilty. If a child lives with fairness, he learns justice. If a child lives with security, she learns to have faith. If a child lives with acceptance and friendship, he learns to find love in the world”

A four-year-old girl went with a group of family and friends to see the Christmas lights, displayed at various locations throughout the city. At one Church, they stopped and got out to look more closely at a beautiful nativity scene. “Isn’t that beautiful?” said the little girl’s grandmother. “Look at all the animals, Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus.” “Yes, Grandma,” replied the granddaughter. “It is really nice. But there is only one thing that bothers me. Isn’t Baby Jesus ever going to grow up…? He’s the same size he was last year!”

This moves us to a second poem, “The First Coming” by Madeline L’Engle. Again, I will not quote the whole poem, but some selected lines. “He did not wait till the world was ready, till men and nations were at peace. He came when the Heavens were unsteady, and prisoners cried out… He did not wait for the perfect time, He came when the need was deep… He did not wait till hearts were pure. In joy he came to a tarnished world of sin… In the mystery of the Word made Flesh the Maker of the stars was born. We cannot wait till the world is sane to raise our songs with joyful voice, for to share our grief, to touch our pain, He came with Love..,”   God did not wait, says Madeline, and we cannot wait until the world is sane. Today, in hearing this scripture, we share in the mystery of the Word in flesh; and Today we share with others, in our actions, the same word “Today.”...

Grace Darling was one of the most famous heroines of 19th century England, a teenager whose father operated a lighthouse in the Farne Islands. In the early morning watch, she saw a ship foundered on the rocks of a nearby island, broken in half, and a few struggling survivors. When Grace told her father, he thought it was too dangerous to row out in the choppy sea, but she convinced him. Together they rowed a mile through perilous waters to the shipwreck and saved nine people of the crew of 63. Her bravery was celebrated in poetry by Wordsworth and in paintings, and she received awards. But she did it because she valued human life and was willing to take risks to save others. That is the job if you are a lightkeeper.

Let me explore this new story with you in a personal way. It’s a story that lets the grace and truth of the Divine speak through human flesh and blood. As a child, my favorite story at Christmas time was called “Why the Chimes Rang”. It told that two brothers longed to attend Christmas Eve worship in the cathedral, but a huge snowstorm had made it impossible to get there this year. The reason both wanted to go was because the legend had it that when the greatest gift was placed on the altar, the bells that had not been heard in centuries would finally ring. The boys set out, but on the way the older had to stay behind because an old woman had fallen in a snowdrift and someone would have to help her to stay alive. The older brother gave the younger his pesos and Pedro made it to the cathedral. He watched as one-by-one, significant people placed their treasures at the altar. Even the king placed his crown in the middle of it. None caused the bells to ring—until little Pedro came quietly up the side and placed his few pesos at the altar and suddenly it happened. It was the sign—then as well as now—that the bells ring and God’s glory shines—when our love for another is more important than care for ourselves...

Dr. Maxwell Maltz was once one of the premier cosmetic surgeons in the United States. He began to notice a theme with his patients; many were disappointed after their surgeries. One story he told stands out to me. A car crash gashed a young woman’s cheek when she was an adolescent. The result was a large scar across her cheek. It was a painful embarrassment through her teenage years; she just wanted it to go away. She knew that her emotional pain would leave with the scar. Dr. Maltz said, “I told her that I’d remove the scar, and, after surgery, she would look fine once again. It will be as if it was never there.” After surgery, he waited for her reaction. He said, “Many patients are joyful when they first see their new, improved image. But her reaction was uncertain; she expressed no real positive emotion. I waited a few seconds, then said, “What do you think? Do you like it?” “It looks better,’ she admitted, `but I don’t feel better!'”...

Pope Benedict XVI some years ago was able to hit the nail on the head with a reflection that has remained with me and helped recapture the joy of some of the excesses that sometimes are seen this time of year. He said, Let us remember in particular, as we look at the streets and squares of the cities decorated with dazzling lights, that these lights refer us to another light, invisible to the eyes but not to the heart. While we admire them, while we light the candles in churches or the illuminations of the crib and the Christmas tree in our homes, may our souls be open to the true spiritual light brought to all people of good will. The God-with-us, born in Bethlehem of the Virgin Mary, is the Star of our lives!...

Marilynne Robinson loves lawn sprinklers. If you read her Pulitzer-prize winning novel, Gilead, then you know that she is always on the lookout for the glory that lurks in the everyday. Along those lines, she thinks that the person who invented the garden sprinkler did something far lovelier than just provide a handy way to water grass. Because, you see, sprinklers expose water droplets to sunlight, and in that shimmering moment, you see each drop not as the stuff you use to do the dishes or mop the kitchen floor. No, you see that each drop is really a jewel, a mini-cathedral, as the light refracts to expose the dazzling rainbow that surrounds us always. The essence of light and water is revealed in the selfsame moment, and it reminds us of the glory that engulfs us daily, though we mostly miss it. “We have seen his glory,” the evangelist John wrote. But he also wrote that the glory of that One and Only sent from the Father often is missed. “He came to that which was his own and his own received him not.” Glory surrounds us, John believed and Marilynne Robinson claims. But we miss it. We miss it again and again.

In the beginning of this new decade I do have a story to tell you. It is Sufi myth full of questions. The Sufi myth begins where Sufi myths often begin. It begins with a certain Sultan owned everything a man could wish for and still he did not know the purpose of life. The answer to three questions made his life difficult: What should I do? With which people should I do the things God asks me to do? When should I do it? The Sultan asked the advice of all kinds of wise people, and then he was told that there was a Chishti dervish, who lived far away, and who might give him a satisfactory answer. The Sultan immediately left and after a journey of several weeks he met the dervish. The dervish was cultivating his own land. He was a simple man, but no simpleton, as he was reciting a Persian quatrain over and over again: There is a work beyond knowledge, realize that, go! Do not work to get jewels, be the mine, go! The heart is a temporary abode, leave it and come! The soul is the final abode, realize that, go! The Sultan was however not interested in Persian poems and put his three questions to the dervish...

Includes “Lux Aurumque” | Original English text (“Light and Gold”) by Edward Esch (born 1970), translated into Latin by Charles Anthony Silvestri, 2000 | Music by Eric Whitacre, 2000 | Performed by Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choir, 2010

The early Van Gogh shown here may at first glance seem a plodding comparison to the lofty language of the gospel, but the painting seems to embody the two sides of the text: old and new, accepted and rejected, light and life...all in the context of the word. Van Gogh painted the work after the death of his father, a Dutch Reformed minister...

At the age of nineteen months, Helen Adams Keller became ill. It was 1881. Doctors did not know what to call the mysterious illness that came over the little girl. They described it as "an acute congestion of the stomach and the brain." Perhaps it was scarlet fever or meningitis. Whatever it was, the illness ravaged Helen's little body, leaving her blind and deaf. Helen survived but she woke up alone in a world of darkness. Helen's family did not know how to reach her. She behaved like an animal. She was fed and dressed but without the ability to communicate - without language - she was lost. She ran around the house and grounds wildly searching for food or getting into mischief. She ran roughshod over her family. No one knew how to reach her. Until a young woman was hired as her tutor: Anne Sullivan...

One of my jobs as co-pilot for my father-in-law was to find the beacon. While he was busy getting the plane ready to land, communicating with air traffic control, and going through his check-lists, my eyes were fixed in the general vicinity of the airport, looking for that familiar light to flash across the windshield. “Got it,” was my usual response when the airport beacon was in sight. These two words were enough for Doug to know that the mandatory landing ahead of us would be as standard as a visual landing can be. As the co-pilot, I am the one responsible to testify to the light...

“Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on… Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss, Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve; She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!” Thus begins John Keats’ poem, Ode on a Grecian Urn. In it, Keats celebrates the permanent anticipation of a life quite literally set in stone. Pipes play unheard, unable to be judged. Two lovers stay in an almost-kiss, the anticipation forever building but never accomplished. If anticipation is the best part of any experience, Keats holds, then this painted or chiseled world is paradise: stone, not flesh, immortal, forever in joyous anticipation...

In a book Man at work in God’s world the author, Red Barber, a sports writer, tells the story of a church service that he attended before the Hall of Fame Baseball game. It was held at Christ Church, Coopertown, N.Y., and the rector asked Warren Giles, the president of the National league, to read a lesson. He accepted without hesitation. He not only read the lesson but also put on robes in order to do it. Barber, who had known Giles for some years, said to him, “Warren I’m surprised, that you are putting on vestments, and that you are going to read the lesson. I didn’t know you were interested in religion. At least, I’ve never heard you speak of it.” Giles' answer was what really got to him. He said, “I never thought it was necessary to speak of it. I regard religion as natural and as necessary as my next breath.”...

Fifty-one years ago tonight — Christmas Eve — three men witnessed a sight no human being had ever before seen. They took a picture of it. A picture that has likely been seen by more human beings than any other. A reproduction of that photo is printed on our bulletin cover this evening. The three men were American astronauts: Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders, the crew of Apollo 8. They were orbiting the moon, and had already gone round three times. On the fourth pass, they looked up and saw something they hadn’t expected to see (they’d been so preoccupied with examining the gray, pockmarked lunar surface below them). What they saw stunned them. It took their breath away. What they saw was the earth rising. Frank Borman, commander of the expedition, described it this way: “I happened to glance out of one of the still-clear windows just at the moment the Earth appeared over the lunar horizon. It was the most beautiful, heart-catching sight of my life, one that sent a torrent of nostalgia, of sheer homesickness, surging through me. It was the only thing in space that had any color to it. Everything else was either black or white, but not the Earth.”...

One of the first people in England to champion democracy and the right of ordinary people - not just the bosses and the political elite - to decide what happens was an army officer called John Lilburne. For his outspokenness he was put in prison, where he caught a fever which led to his premature death. His wife was pregnant at the time. Someone said of him that he was like a lighted candle - in giving light to others he had used up himself. And Christians think Jesus was like that, too. When he came into the world on the first Christmas night he brought a light into the world which no darkness has ever been able to put out. And yet this was only possible because the Christmas story was followed by Easter. He allowed his own life to be used up for others.

Chris was, in many ways, a typical child. He studied hard when school was in session, played hard when it was not. He loved his family, especially his dad, whom he admired. He tolerated his sister and was best friends with his dog. He loved both the excitement of new adventures, especially those born of his vivid imagination, and the routines of the day. He was not an especially troubled child, though he was no stranger to mischief. As he grew older he visited the "timeout corner" less and less, learning to negotiate the careful balance between boundaries and the challenge of stretching and growing beyond them. He had few fears as a child, but of those things he did fear, the darkness loomed large. "Night light! Night light!" he would shout whenever his dad would forget to turn it on. He was strangely drawn to the light in the face of his fears. It amazed him that such a small bulb has such amazing power. It could banish the darkness and his fears with it. Over the years he found comfort in the face of darkness from many places. The night light was his first refuge. When he was a bit older, he would turn on his closet light whenever the fears would resurface, opening the door between the closet and his bedroom just wide enough to give hopeful light to his night. When he would go camping with his family or the scouts, he was always drawn to the campfire like a moth to a light bulb. He learned early how to build and tend the fire, thereby becoming the protector of all around from the hateful darkness. When he was 10, he received a magical gift for his birthday...

Teddy was wealthy, handsome and unhappy. He could afford to buy whatever he wanted - including women to sleep with. He could put on his act and charm the gals, he drank everything from tuba to whiskey and smoked everything from cigarettes to pot. But deep inside he was empty. Then he met Heriot. That was five years ago. "Before I met her," he said, "it seems that I did not know what the words beauty and reverence meant. But when I met her and encountered her loveliness I seemed to see beauty in all of the world. I felt reverence towards her and all the world besides. I suddenly felt horrified at using another person just for my own pleasure and was terrified that what I had done may have made me dirty for her. I never touched another girl since. I stopped smoking and only drank lightly in company from the day I met her. Our two years of marriage have been probably as near to perfect as a marriage could be. I just marvel and thank God for such a love as that of Heriot. She gives meaning and value to all that I do."...

There is a story about two brothers, named Tom and John, whose father had died. He had willed the farm to the two of them to keep his sons together. It had not worked that way. John had married and lived in a small town with his family. Tom, who remained single, lived alone in the old farmhouse. “John is always preoccupied with his family,” Tom thought. “I do more than my share of the work.” He began to resent his brother. “Tom is always so grouchy,” thought John. “He is jealous of my wife and children.” A wall of resentment built up between them. They would hardly speak to each other. They attended the same little church in town and sat on opposite sides of the nave during the Christmas Eve service. John was troubled because they had hardly acknowledged each other’s presence as they sat in church. On the way home John said to his wife, “Tom is alone and has no one to share Christmas. I know he won’t come here. Maybe we can take a warm dinner to him.” His wife prepared a delicious meal and John put it into a sleigh and started from the small town to the farmhouse in the country. Meanwhile, Tom, sitting alone, said to himself: “Life is too short for this. John is my only brother and he has it hard with his wife and family. I will load my wagon with wood for the fire and gifts for the children.” So he loaded his wagon and drove toward town...

How do you catch a duck? When 30,000 people are watching you, and your boss tells you not to hurt it, how do you catch a duck? I don’t remember what day it was or who the Cubs were playing, but I remember that at some point in the latter innings of a game at Wrigley Field, a duck flew in and landed on the warning track at the base of the ivy-covered brick wall. It was a distraction—for the players as well as the fans—and the ground crew supervisor asked for a volunteer to go and get the duck. “I ain’t scared of no duck,” I thought to myself, as I raised my hand to volunteer. “Alright,” he said to me, “go get it.”

Once there was a monastery with a long history of commerce and a thriving spiritual community. But as time wore on, fewer and fewer villagers visited the hallowed halls. Fewer people turned to the monastery for advice. Even the sale of their famous wines began to dwindle. The abbot began to despair for his community. “What should they do?” he wondered. They prayed daily for guidance, but the brothers only became more dispirited. The monastery itself reflected their mood, becoming shabby and untidy. At last the Abbot, hearing that a wise Jewish rabbi was visiting, swallowed his pride and went to visit the rabbi to ask his advice. The abbot and the rabbi visited for a long time...

Ruth Dudley tells the story of her very precocious three-year-old grandson Brendon. One day she found him staring intently at a group of ants, who were going about their business. “What are you thinking?” Grandma asked. “I’m wondering whether ants can hear,” the boy replied. “Do you know whether ants have ears?” “Sorry,” Ruth confessed, “I really don’t know. But why? Do you have something you want to tell them?” “Well actually, Ruth,” Brendan said, in a voice remarkably condescending for a three-year old, “even if they do have ears and can hear, my voice would be quite incomprehensible to them.” A bit flummoxed, Ruth decided she’d fix the smart-aleck grandson. “So if you really wanted to communicate with them, how would you go about it?” After a long and thoughtful pause, Brendan replied, “Well, I guess I’d just have to become an ant.”

Parents should be singers of a song, murmuring the ancient lines like waves into the seashell ears of new-born children, "You are beautiful, and beloved and the best thing in the world." The whispered tune is tangled through their hearts, and, humming with the resonance of love, the contrapuntal melodies turn softly in the pathways of their souls, to spin the strands of safety with their song of reassurance. "You are beautiful, and beloved and the best thing in the world." And when they are grown, these love-sung children? When they are grown they echo still with music. "You are beautiful, and beloved and the best thing in the world."

In a Reader’s Digest story, Maureen Macay gives a lovely example of a grace she experienced while traveling in China. She writes, “Traveling by train in China, my son and I shared a sleeping compartment with a Chinese couple. They spoke no English and we knew few Chinese words, so conversation was impossible — until an hour into the trip, when the man called someone on his cell phone. After a few moments, he passed the phone to his wife who also spoke into it. Then, to my surprise, she handed me the phone. Feeling rather foolish, I said, ‘Hello’ into it. The person at the other end was the couple’s daughter, who spoke perfect English. I told her about us and our trip, and she relayed the information to her parents. How delightful that a simple phone call could teach us such a lesson about Chinese graciousness.” And the ability to communicate...

For a few years at a church I once served, John sang Ave Maria at the Christmas Eve service. Sometimes, his name was listed in the worship bulletin; sometimes he unexpectedly appeared and we’d let him sing. Of course we would! It was a United Methodist congregation, and yet there was John, crooning the most Roman Catholic of songs about a maiden and her child. John may have been a drug addict. He occasionally worshiped in the non-Ave Maria seasons, present for a few Sundays in a row, perhaps singing in the choir, and then—for months—disappearing. He randomly worked, with a mix of rumors that his family was wealthy and sent him money. The then thirty-something John drifted here and there. I’d worry about him. I’d forget about him. I have wondered, especially during Decembers, what happened to John?

Author Max Lucado tells about a trip his family took to the United Kingdom. They visited a castle. In the center of the castle garden sat a maze with row after row of shoulder-high hedges, leading to one dead end after another. If you successfully navigate the labyrinth, you discover the door to a tall tower in the center of the garden. Lucado says that if you were to look at their family pictures of the trip, you'd see four of their five family members standing on the top of the tower. Guess who was missing? That's right, Lucado. Lucado says he was lost and stuck in that maze. He couldn't figure out which way to go. But then he heard a voice from above, "Hey, Dad." He looked up to the top of the tower to see his daughter Sara, peering down at him. "You're going the wrong way," she explained. "Back up and turn right."

Ruth Dudley tells the story of her very precocious three-year-old grandson Brendon. One day she found him staring intently at a group of ants, who were going about their business. “What are you thinking?” Grandma asked. “I’m wondering whether ants can hear,” the boy replied. “Do you know whether ants have ears?” “Sorry,” Ruth confessed, “I really don’t know. But why? Do you have something you want to tell them?” “Well actually, Ruth,” Brendan said, in a voice remarkably condescending for a three-year old, “even if they do have ears and can hear, my voice would be quite incomprehensible to them.” A bit flummoxed, Ruth decided she’d fix the smart-aleck grandson. “So if you really wanted to communicate with them, how would you go about it?” After a long and thoughtful pause, Brendan replied, “Well, I guess I’d just have to become an ant.”

("Optimism tends to accompany a new year. But we leave 2014 somewhat broken and disappointed. The online magazine Slate has christened 2014 The Year of Outrage. I bet the name sticks. Slate's snappy multi-media calendar links the most outrageous news story for every day of the past year. What was so outrageous, and who found themselves offended?...")

Logos is first a mathematical term used to describe reckoning accounts. In the pre-Socratic philosophers it takes on a cosmic connotation, meaning something like balance or reckoning in the universe (see Pythagoras). Heraclitus was the first Greek philosopher to imbue metaphysical meaning arguing that the term meant universal coherence. The Sophists, who offered professional instruction in speaking, taught the art of logos, which was speech, reasoning, and argumentation.

("A few years ago at a funeral over which I presided, a young man spoke lovingly about his father, Henry, a working class guy, a factory worker. The son had gone far, both far in life and far from home, studying in major universities in far-flung cities as he became first an M.D. and then a well-respected expert in his specialty. At the funeral, the doctor said that often when he called home, he would apologize to his father for being so far away, for seldom being able to visit. And Henry would say, 'It's okay son, it's okay. Alexander Graham Bell was a great man. He allowed us to go cheek-to-cheek anytime.'...")

And yet, we who cling to the Light keep on pointing to it. Even Queen Elizabeth in her annual Christmas Message pointed to these words in John's Gospel: 'The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it...' She spoke these words as she reflected on the shared moments of darkness the world has experienced in this last year. Indeed, we all continue to hang on to the promises of God as we hear them again today. In spite of all evidence to the contrary.

("I find myself remembering an old song called Plastic Jesus which was recorded in the early 1960's. If you haven't heard it before, it may be helpful to know that it was 'inspired' by a radio station in Del Rio, Texas in the late 1950's 'which was run by a dentist and religious fanatic who sold the most outrageous stuff imaginable, all with magical healing properties'. It is a spoof, of course, and speaks to our certainty that inanimate objects in and of themselves cannot protect us or save us. At least not in the way Jesus --- the Word become flesh ---did and does...")

Back in 1970 a Belgian Cardinal by the name of Suenens was asked the question: 'Why are you a man of hope even in these days?' He answered: 'Because I believe that God is new every morning, I believe that God is creating the world today, at this very moment. He did not just create it in the long ago and then forget about it. That means that we have to expect the unexpected as the normal way of God's providence at work.

A few weeks ago there was a the story in the paper of the woman who had fallen victim to a scam artist and as a result was left with a leaky roof and no way to fix it because she had given all her money to the one who perpetrated the scam. Over the past few weeks, people she knew, total strangers and local businesse have pitched in to help and the good news is that her roof will soon be fixed and other needed repairs attended to as well

The poet W.H. Auden captured the after-Christmas feeling very well. Toward the close of his long poem, “For the Time Being,” he wrote: “Well, so that is that. Now we must dismantle the tree, Putting the decorations back into their cardboard boxes – Some have got broken – and carrying them up to the attic. The holly and the mistletoe must be taken down and burnt, And the children got ready for school. There are enough Leftovers to do, warmed up, for the rest of the week – Not that we have much appetite, having drunk such a lot, Stayed up so late, attempted – quite unsuccessfully – To love all of our relatives, and in general Grossly overestimated our powers.” Auden’s “For the Time Being” is a Christmas oratorio written for the bleak mid-winter, post-Christmas malaise. The excitement of the holiday is past, and now we get back to our daily lives, made all the more dull by the brief holiday...

(includes several quotes)

Film takes place on Christmas Eve. Includes questions for reflection.

in Michelangelo's Creation of Adam, we know that God's right hand reaches out to the newly created Adam. (Detail below.) Here's the question: where is God's left hand and arm?

("A 31 year-old physicist at MIT, Jeremy England, has been mixing things up a bit in the world of physics and the question of the origin of life, as we know it, here on earth (and perhaps existing elsewhere). The Big Bang followed by primordial ooze giving birth to life is not enough for the young physicist. According to England, there are even more fundamental laws of nature at work...")

A psychologist who's done a lot of work understanding childhood experiences once said to me that the experience of being a small child is always a bit humiliating. When my daughter was quite young, I used to get frustrated by the habit she had of trying to find some error to correct in everything I said, and I had to remind myself that not only was that embarrassingly like me, but that it was understandable for her to be desperately wanting to be more knowledgeable or more powerful than those around her at least some of the time.

And in every culture, every nation and every faith, there are those who have seen the light that enlightens nations, the word that becomes flesh and is full of grace and truth. It is not where they worship that defines them, but how they walk about this earth, cherishing the light they find in others. We can all look at Larycia Hawkins, and see one of them.

("In the early 1940's, as World War II was commencing, the English American poet W. H. Auden wrote a long poem, called For the Time Being, in which he sought to communicate the importance of Christmas for the present. The poem then ends with these poignant stanzas: 'He is the Way. Follow him through the Land of Unlikeness; You will see rare beasts, and have unique adventures. He is the Truth.Seek him in the Kingdom of Anxiety; You will come to a great city that has expected your return for years. He is the Life. ...")

There are no words.' If you ever hear someone say that, it generally means one of two things. Either the person's witnessing something of awe-inspiring beauty — standing at the rim of the Grand Canyon, or gazing at some masterpiece in a museum — or the speaker is face to face with tragedy, their own or someone else's. Bereavement, suffering, natural disaster. For such experiences there are no words...

("In Henrik Ibsen's famous play Ghosts, Pastor Manders and Mrs Alving reminisce about the deceased Mr Alving. The pastor speaks highly of the woman's husband who had been regarded as a respectable pillar of the local community. Suddenly Mrs Alving opens up to the cleric and tells the truth about her husband; things she had kept to herself for many years...")

("It was 4 o'clock when the train pulled into the Woodside Station in Queens. I was almost there. It was an open platform, and I could see the skyline from my train. I could smell the city. In four-and-a-half minutes, we would emerge from a tunnel that ran through the East River and Manhattan would be under my feet. Home sweet home. Except something was wrong. The doors opened, but they did not shut...")

("my experience of stumbling about in the dark in Daddy's backyard came rushing back to me. There is one way in which my Daddy and God Almighty were alike; they had both been wandering around their respective back yards for a long time, they knew everything that was there and they didn't need a light. But unlike Daddy, God has taken account of the visitors and strangers stumbling around in the world's darkness and God has provided a light to show us the way..."

("Kierkegaard tells the story of a king who was in love with poor peasant girl. She did not know him personally; he saw her from afar and wanted her for his bride. At first the king thought he would do what kings normally did; he would send for her, announce his attention to marry her, she would accept and be eternally grateful that he had rescued her from her poor village, etc...") (scroll down for this sermon)

there were two brothers 8 and 10 years old, who were exceedingly mischievous. Whatever went wrong in the neighborhood, it turned out they had a hand in it. Their parents were at their wits' end. Their mother heard about a priest who worked with delinquent boys, so she asked the priest to talk to them. The priest agreed, so the mother sent the younger boy to the priest first. The priest’s strategy was to make the boy realize that God was everywhere and could see everything he did. He pointed his forefinger at the boy and asked, "Where is God?" The boy said nothing. Again, louder, the priest pointed at the boy and asked, "Where is God?" Again the boy said nothing. A third time, in a louder, firmer voice, the priest leaned far across the desk and put his forefinger almost to the boy's nose, and asked, "Where is God?" The boy jumped up and ran all the way home. He grabbed his older brother and pulled him upstairs to their room without speaking. Then he finally said, "We are in BIG trouble this time" The older boy asked, "What do you mean, BIG trouble?" His brother replied, "God is missing and they think WE did it!"...

"It's kind of trivial to call Christmas a phone call. I know that, but still, have you answered the call that is Christmas? Christmas is very simply God wanting to talk, and, yes, talk to you. That baby is more than a newborn, he is God's Word to you. He is God wanting to speak to you. Are you listening? Have you answered the call from Jesus as yet?..."

("The parallel between Genesis 1 and John 1 is obvious, but if you press forward, the connections run throughout. The six miracles in John's gospel correspond to the six days of creation. On the sixth day, God makes man in his image and gives him the tree of life; in John, the sixth miracle is God becoming man and hanging on the tree of death. On the cross, Jesus declares that "it is finished," naming his work good much like the Creator does in Genesis...")

("Marilynne Robinson loves lawn sprinklers. If you read her Pulitzer-prize winning novel, Gilead, then you know that she is always on the lookout for the glory that lurks in the everyday. Along those lines, she thinks that the person who invented the garden sprinkler did something far lovelier than just provide a handy way to water grass...")

includes several quotes

("There is so much that captures our imaginations in this wonderful poetry found in John's first chapter. Indeed, one might find oneself reflecting on the similarity of these opening words to that of Genesis 1 where both writers weave poetry about 'beginnings.' One could stand still in the marvelous contrast between light and darkness. One surely can't help but consider the truth that some received and receive Jesus well --- and others simply do did not and do not still...")

"How many different ways can we tell the same story? The way you tell a story, what you include and what you leave out, shows the hearer, or reader, what is important to you, the teller of the tale. One of the first things I learned in history in university was that there is really no such thing as a "pure history" of an event, if by that term you mean, 'just the facts and only the facts'..."

Martha was heartbroken. Due to the unexpected blizzard, the airports were closed throughout the Midwest. Her daughter in New York, the one for whom she had baked the turkey, and the pies, and all the rest for Christmas dinner, would not be here for Christmas. When Alice called to see if she had heard any news, Martha told her the sad story, barely able to fight back her tears. “Jill may not get here for two or three days, she says. What was to be our very best Christmas is on the way to being our very worst,” said Martha, with some bitterness in her voice. “I’m very sorry that the storm will keep her away from home,” said Alice, “But maybe this bad news can come to some good.” “How?” asked Martha. “I’ve just found out that we have nobody to work at the Homeless Shelter tonight. George always does it, every Christmas, but George is in bed with the flu. There’s just no one else. Everyone else is with, well, family. Is there anyway that you might help?” asked Alice. Martha felt some resentment that Alice would be so cold as to move so quickly from sharing her disappointment, to asking her to do this job. But what had she to lose? She said yes. In an hour, she was down at the Homeless Shelter, serving soup, opening cots...

("I cannot tell you how the light comes. What I know is that it is more ancient than imagining. That it travels across an astounding expanse to reach us. That it loves searching out what is hidden what is lost what is forgotten or in peril or in pain. That it has a fondness for the body for finding its way toward flesh for tracing the edges of form for shining forth through the eye, the hand, the heart...")

("In his book The Jesus I Never Knew, Philip Yancey shares an episode from his youth when the concept of "the Word became flesh and lived among us" dawned on him with profound meaning: 'I learned about incarnation when I kept a salt-water aquarium. Management of a marine aquarium, I discovered, is no easy task...")

("I learned about incarnation when I kept a salt-water aquarium. Management of a marine aquarium, I discovered, is no easy task. I had to run a portable chemical laboratory to monitor the nitrate levels and the ammonia content. I pumped vitamins and antibiotics and sulpha drugs and enough enzymes to make a rock grow. I filtered the water through glass fibres and charcoal, and exposed it to ultraviolet light...")

("In his Daily Study Bible Series on the Gospel of John, Dr. William Barclay tells of a little girl who when she was confronted with some of the more bloodthirsty and savage parts of the Old Testament felt called upon to offer some explanation in defense of God. She said: 'That happened before God became a Christian.'..." and other illustrations)

("Bo Don Cox, a writer talked about the corrosive power of fear in his life. He wrote, "I was afraid of not fitting in the first time I got high. I was afraid of someone else seeing the truth the first time I lied...")

("It's Christmas Eve in 1943 and the setting is a railway station somewhere in the United States. Eleven year old Gordy and his sister Priscilla and their mother are waiting for a train that will bring the children's father home for Christmas. He has been on the battle fields of Europe...")

("On the island of Guam, a U.S. territory in the western Pacific, there are many people who have come seeking a better life for their children. One of them is a man we'll call Andrew. Andrew came to Guam with his common-law wife and several children, seeking a better life and to escape from the grinding poverty that afflicts much of Micronesia...")

("he poet Madeline L'Engle expresses it better than I can. 'He did not wait till the world was ready, till men and nations were at peace. He came when the Heavens were unsteady, and prisoners cried out for release...")

("Probably all of you have read Dr. Suess' How the Grinch Stole Christmas, or seen the movie or cartoon versions of the Grinch. The Grinch, a grouchy monster-like grump tries to 'steal Christmas' from all the Whos in Whoville....")

("In a French Book of Hours fashioned in the Middle Ages, the Virgin Mary stands admiring the infant Jesus. Shed of his makeshift manger bed, Jesus has moved up to fancier digs: he is cradled in a book, securely enclosed by the leather strap that holds it shut...")

("My normal drive to the church took me under a freeway overpass. As I approached the freeway, an odd sight caught my attention; and it made me look again. It was a pink aluminum Christmas tree about three feet high set up on a small triangular littered patch of grass between the bridge and the onramp to the freeway...")

("a few years ago, I was out with a group of young adults camping out in the country. Our late evening session entailed going out together in the dark, into the woods, on an unfamiliar trail. One person, the leader, had been on the trail before and he was the only one with a flashlight. It was quite scary to say the least. We didn't know where we were, but we did finally end up in the light of the main building. When we arrived back at the building, we sat around and talked about the experience...")

("And what, may we ask is darkness? Darkness is the terror that frightens. It is what shames the soul and drags us down. Darkness is what hides truth from us and causes us to lose our way as we seek the great end of holiness....")

("One time there was a man named Henry Carter who was a counselor in a home for disturbed children. It was Christmas Eve and they were preparing for a service of carols, followed by a meal and opening presents. One of the children, who name was Tommy, crawled under his bed and refused to come out..." and other illustrations)

("I've been reading a novel titled The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff for a book club of which I'm a member. The novel purports to relate the story of Mormon pioneer Brigham Young's many wives along with a second contemporary story line which explores a mysterious murder within a polygamous sect in Utah...")

"I spent my first year after ordination doing a clinical residency at Parkland Hospital in Dallas TX and working part-time as a pastoral assistant in a suburban parish. I loved working in that large trauma hospital where patients were often very poor..."

("The people who enjoy Christmas the most are children. So if you want to really enter into the joy this season, you will have to become a child of God.... ")

("Would you like to know what Jesus got you for Christmas this year? It is the same thing he has been giving people since the very first Christmas the gifts of grace and truth. The best news is that he brought these gifts to you, in the flesh.... ")

The scene: a dank shed ringed by barbed wire in Si Ringo Ringo, a Japanese concentration camp on the east coast of Sumatra. Outside, the tropical sun blazed by day and a huge moon filled the fantastically starry sky by night. Inside the shed, perpetual darkness. There were people living in that shed. No, "living"is the wrong word. We were packed away there. Sometimes we could see beyond us little sparks, as sun or moon flashed on patches of barbed wire that hadn't rusted over the years. For it had been years now―or was it decades? We were too sick and too weak to care. In the beginning, we thought about such things as the day or the hour. Now, eternity. Beside us and in front us, men died―from hunger, from disease, from the ebbing of the last fay of hope...

("Several years ago, at Christmas, I was walking downtown, late for an appointment. I rushed past a small group of young teenagers who were singing carols on the sidewalk. I should have kept running, but for some reason I stopped for just a moment. It was then that I noticed these teenagers all had some developmental disability...")

It was about two in the morning a week before Christmas when the police officers arrived at the door. There are two of them and one is carrying a largish bundle. I knew they were coming, so I let them inside out of the snow. The officer looks apologetic, hands me the bundle, and says, "Sorry. We don't know anything about him. Can he stay with you?" I respond, "I told you we're at our license limit." But I reach out for the bundle anyway. I open the blankets, but the child does not wake. He looks 8 or 9 months old. The officer looks exhausted and hopeful. Her partner looks ready to leave. I say, "He can stay." For emergency shelter care homes, middle of the night visits by the police are not unusual. And it seems to get worse around holiday time. We're always full at Christmas. I get out the forms for the officers to fill in. But it's wasted time. They really don't know much. He says, "The mom's in jail. Too stoned to get much out of her. No I.D. Out of state plates on the car. We'll let you know in the morning." She adds, "Well, she did say that when he wakes up, he will cry." "Good," I think. Because he's going to have to sleep on the floor by my bed. Both the cribs and the kids' rooms are already in use. I'm swaying gently, hoping he'll stay asleep. The officers sign the papers and start to leave. As I walk them to the door, she adds an afterthought: "Oh. And his name. His mother called him Emmanuel.'"...

He wasn’t a scrooge. He was a good and decent man, generous to his family, upright in his dealings with others. But as a modern thinker seeking complex answers to life’s situations, he just could not accept the simple story of Christmas, the "God born a man in a manger" story. To him, the incarnation stuff the church espoused was beyond belief. It just didn’t make sense, and he was too honest to pretend that he believed what he didn’t. On Christmas Eve, as the family was preparing to leave for a midnight service of candles and carols at the nearby church, he informed them he would not be going. "I’d be a hypocrite!" he said. So he stayed and they went. Shortly after they’d gone, snow began to fall. He stood by the window in the front room and watched the flakes grow bigger and bigger before retreating to his fireside chair to read the newspaper. Moments later he was startled by a loud thunk. Then another. And still another. "Kids throwing snowballs," he thought to himself. Yet it didn’t exactly sound like snowballs. And besides, what kids would be out playing at that time of night? Going to the door and opening it, he saw a flock of birds huddled miserably in the deepening snow. They had apparently been caught in the unexpected snowstorm, and in an effort to find shelter had tried to fly through the large picture window. What to do? He couldn’t just let them lie there. But what could he do? Then, with a flash of inspiration, he thought of the barn where the kids stabled their pony beside the house. That would provide a safe, warm place. Grabbing his coat, he walked outside to the old barn and threw open the creaking wooden doors. He turned on the light. But the birds did not go in. "Food!" he said out loud. Food would entice them. So, running back to the house, he found some bread crumbs his wife was planning to use to make croutons for the big meal the next day. He proceeded to make a trail of bread leading to the barn. Still, the birds flapped around inattentively. He tried catching them. He tried shooing them by walking all around them, waving his arms. But they scattered in every direction except toward the open barn door. Then it dawned on him: "They are afraid of me. To them I’m a strange, mysterious creature. If only I could tell them I’m trying to help - that they can trust me. If only I could mingle with them and speak their language. If only I could become a bird so they could hear, see, and understand - maybe then they would follow me into the safe warm barn." Just then he heard the church bells in the distance ringing out the tune to the familiar carol, "Joy to the world, the Lord is come!" It seemed like a message meant just for him. His doubts melted in a flame of insight, and he fell to his knees in the snow...

The issue of who is moving into the neighborhood stirs up a lot of interest – doesn’t it? A construction firm begins work on a new dwelling in your neighborhood. What happens? One of the first questions you hear (or ask) is, "I wonder _________" [Can you finish the question?] " I wonder who is moving in…. or how much that house cost…." My family recently went through a move. Two minutes after the "For Sale" sign went up on our front lawn, the phone rang. After that call there were two more calls within fifteen minutes. "Who’s going to move in?," was the foremost concern on our neighbor’s minds. (As though we were psychic) A couple came to look at the house and when they left, one of our immediate neighbors called and said, "You’d better not sell your house to them!" There was a general sense of anxiety in the neighborhood until the house finally sold to a retired couple. You could sense it in the air, "Whew! I’m glad that’s over." The new couple was received. Some people are not so fortunate when they move into a new neighborhood.

("Henry Rogers wrote The Eclipse of Faith. In it he imagines that some powerful hand has wiped the influence of Christ out of our civilization, as a hand would clean a blackboard in a schoolroom. Rogers represents himself as going into his library to find no trace left of the life or words of Jesus...")

Some of you may recall a television program called "Quantum Leap". It's in reruns now, but it was a series of episodes around a time travel experiment gone awry. Until his associates could figure out what has gone wrong, Sam, the principal character and a trained scientist, served as the guinea pig for the experiment, traveling in and out of different places and times. What made Quantum Leap different from other time machine stories is that Sam meets ordinary people and in ordinary places - the history of the era is only a backdrop. Not only does he enter their time and place, Sam also enters the physical body of the individual and becomes that person. Among the lives Sam has entered has been that of a black man living in the South during the 1960's Civil Rights Movement and a mentally retarded youth. Always conscious of his own identity "inside" the body he finds himself, Sam, with his awareness of history, psychology and technology, he is able to bring resolution, understanding, joy and peace to the lives he enters for only a few moments...

Some ten years ago, a tourist reflected in this way about his surprising visit to Bethlehem: My adolescent daughter and I were with a small group of six American tourists making a pilgrimage to Israel. Our visit to Bethlehem was our first trip outside the city of Jerusalem and nothing could have prepared us adequately for what we were to experience. Nothing could have prepared us for the Jewish – Palestinian tension and fear, and nothing could have prepared us for the strange sign of hope we were to see. Although Bethlehem is only ten minutes by car from Jerusalem, we were stopped at three check points: concrete barricades where soldiers asked us to get out of the vehicle; checked our papers; and, with those curious long-handled mirrors, checked the underside of our bus for bombs. In this case, the drive from Jerusalem to Bethlehem took an hour and a half. When the little tour bus arrived in Manger Square, the center of Bethlehem, we saw for the first time not only the expected tourist shops and restaurants spilling out onto the sidewalk and square, but also the gray fortress-like police station, the pointed circles of barbed wire, and the soldiers who patrolled the roof tops to protect us from snipers, it was said; but their weapons were trained on us...

Several years ago in New York City on Christmas Eve, St. George's Episcopal Church was getting ready for its annual evening service, which always included carols, instrumentalists, dancing and a living representation of the Nativity. This year, as people started to arrive, they were greeted by the sight of some street people on the front steps. A man and woman with a shopping cart and a bundle of rags. Several people stopped to offer help and some invited them in out of the cold. They politely declined all offers. Finally, one of the vestry members approached the Rector and said, "We've got a problem." He wanted to called the police and have them remove the street people. Eventually a patrol car came by and the people were asked to move across the street where they wouldn't disturb the worshipers. It was a beautiful service that night, and the nave was full, standing room only. Finally, the climactic moment arrived: Dancers dressed in white appeared at the back of the nave to lead the holy family down the center aisle. As the holy family entered you could hear gasps of recognition. The holy family was the homeless couple from the front steps. The baby Jesus was the bundle of rags they had held in their arms. As the angels led the holy family toward the altar they wept, as did most of the congregation...

Every now and again someone steps forward to offer their life as a symbol of this incarnation, such was the life of Henri Nouwen. Many of you may know him as a write and lecturer. He was trained psychologist and thologian who taught at Notre Dame, Yale and Harvard. He had a resume that many would die for-which was the problem. The demands of his schedule were suffocating him. He tried to escape the pressure by going as a missionary to South America for six months but when he returned the speaking requests only increased. Finally he took up residence at a L'Arche community in Toronto called Daybreak. The community is dedicated to caring for the severely disabled. They have a home in Tacoma and I recently learned that they are now caring for little Sarah Eckblad. Living as the chaplain in residence at Daybreak was quite a change for Henri Nouwen. He lived in a small room with a single bed and only one bookshelf. A few pieces of Shaker-style furniture and one print of a Van Gogh painting adorned the room. He did not have a fax or a computer. His Daytimer's was removed from his simple desk. Each morning he would rise and care for Adam. It would take him nearly two hours to get him ready each morning. He had to bath and shave him. This would be followed by brushing his teeth and coming his hair. Next he would guide his hand to allow Adam to eat his breakfast. When a fellow author suggested that this might not be the best use of a busy priest's time, Nouwen replied, "I am not giving up anything. It is I, not Adam, who gets the main benefit from the friendship."...

There is a story that Jim Wallis tells in his latest book of a reporter in the middle of the Sarejevo crisis who sees a little girl get shot by sniper fire. The reporter threw down his pad and pencil, and stopped being a reporter for a few minutes. He rushed to the man who was holding the child, and helped them both into his car. As the reporter stepped on the accelerator, racing to the hospital, the man holding the bleeding child said, “Hurry, my friend, my child is still alive.” A moment or two later, “Hurry, my friend, my child is still breathing.” A moment, later, “Hurry, my friend, my child is still warm.” and then finally, “Hurry. Oh, My God, my child is getting cold.” The little girl had died by the time they made it to the hospital. As the two men washed the blood off their hands in the lavatory, the man turned to the reporter and said, “This is a terrible task for me. I must now go and tell her father that his child is dead.” The reporter was stunned and said, “I thought she was your child.” The man looked back and said, “Well, I’m not her father, but this child is my child, they are all our children”...

About a year and a half ago, in a restaurant in Austin, Texas, called the Green Mesquite in the booth next to us sat a family. If you ever go there and you like barbecue, try it. At the booth next to us was a family of three, a little girl, her father and mother. The topic of their conversation was the impending birth of a new child into this family. The mother was obviously pregnant and the little girl’s mouth was going 90 miles an hour regarding this soon-to-be addition to the family. The father asked the little girl if she was excited about having a new baby in the house. She quickly answered yes. He then asked her an interesting question. He asked if she had a choice between a brother and sister which would she choose. The words weren’t even out of his mouth when she shouted with shrills that filled the restaurant “a brother.” Her father probed further. He said, think of all the little boys in your class at school. Which one would you most like your brother to be like? There was a long protracted silence. It was deadening and this little girl that had been a bundle of energy in answering the other questions seemed to be stopped cold by that one. She finally looked quite seriously at her father and said, “I think I want a sister.” You see, it was an abstract idea to the little girl before that. She had in her mind all the fairy tale versions of a brother, not the living day-in and day- out, fleshy side of having a brother. When looked at that way her perspective changed a bit...

("In the British writer-physician A.J. Cronin’s autobiography, he describes being a doctor in the North of England when there was an outbreak of diphtheria. A little boy was brought in hardly able to breathe. As the Irish would say, “he had the dip,” and in those days that often meant the patient would die..." and another illustration)

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