December Wonder

December 21st. The invitation for Christmas Dinner has been extended. A son is able to come. We are grateful for his acceptance.

The last Advent Service was Wednesday. Hands full of Christmas cards and letters come in to our mail box daily. I marvel at the number of friends that send them to us. My people light up my life. The Nation's Center News came today. Weekly newspapers from small towns are almost like reading a letter with dozens of photos of high school sports and rodeos. People visit, get cars repaired, go to various meetings, hunt coyotes, have birthday parties and it all gets reported.

A former school mate writes of Christmas Programs in one of the many Harding County one room schools in the 40's. Another school mate writes with the easy knowledge of Prince Bandar, who was "born near Taif in 1950 to Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud, son of the King at that time, and a dark-skinned servant girl that would be classified as a concubine rather than a wife." "Prince Sultan, Minister of Defense during my time in Saudi Arabia, came to my school for graduations and other formal situations."

Our small high school in the 'hinter land,' as one of my Augustana College professors referred to it, graduated students that became people of distinction. People with the core values that made them outstanding in their chosen professions; all from a community and neighbors that cared as much for them as their parents. These people are my people. I am fortunate to have been born and raised there; I am fortunate to be able to go back occasionally and breathe the petrichor and see the people.

The Christmas program story takes me to the Grand River Lutheran Church Christmas programs in the basement before the church was finished. I loved the darkened room, the shiny little red chairs we sat in waiting our turn to sing or recite our 'piece.' I loved my Sunday School teachers, but can't remember the pastors. Mothers dyed gauze material a light blue for the angels gowns and boys pushed and pinched in their bathrobes and jousted with their sheep hooks.

I use another breath taking photograph by the Finnish photographer, who is also a fine artist, I see, as I explore his various web sites. No, I can't read Finnish, so I miss out on descriptions and there are 181,000 hits, some for films, some for Master's Thesis in Public Law, too many to list.