From the pastor

December 14, 2003

The outdoors is dusted with snow this morning. Flakes began falling mid-afternoon yesterday and were still falling after midnight. Roads are slick. One fellow ran his car into a tree—just down the block from my house. He was standing beside the car talking to someone on his cell phone when I came upon the scene.

In contrast to the treacherous forms of transportation, my walk last night was a delight. I only walked for about an hour. And if I didn’t need to get up and go to work in the morning, I think I could have roamed around half the night. There is a peacefulness, brightness, and refreshment in the neighborhood on a snow filled night. It felt quickening to step in the house and brush snow from my hat and jacket.

For all the delight I’m taking in the snow, it still doesn’t quite feel like Christmas to me yet. I feel out of place in the shopping mall. (Of course, that may just be my sanity kicking in.) It seems like we’re rushing it to put Christmas music in the worship service. I haven’t even begun to figure out what to get the kids for Christmas. And Alison and I are just beginning to talk about going out and getting a tree. The "tug" to get into Christmas isn’t there yet. Maybe it will hit me in the next couple days.

We have been battling the flu bug around the church these days. Both Janice and Marcia from the church staff have been down with it. Ben King was supposed to play me in tennis this past week, and he allegedly came down with it. Ben’s been loudly telling me how he’s going to whoop me at tennis, but when the day came, his mother wouldn’t let him play.

I’ve noticed that the kids in the church keep wanting to challenge me at games—ever since we began our family potluck and game night several months ago. Ben wants to take me on in tennis. Ian Ferguson and Alex Rivier want to play against me in euchre. David Bevins wants to take me on in ping pong. And his little sister Elizabeth wants to challenge me in some game where my dinosaur becomes extinct before hers does. For some reason, these kids all expect me to either lose or break a bone in the process.

Well, since I just spent half an hour trying to figure out how to spell, "euchre," it is time to get going to church. I’ve never written the word before and thought it began with a "u." Fortunately, the section on "U" words in the dictionary is a short one, and "EU" was my second choice.

If you are not on the church e-mail list, we have copies of this week’s update on the table in the narthex. Remember the Christmas concert tonight. Walk carefully in this beautiful weather. And pray that God may bless us all in this season with what we REALLY need. --Mike