We've lost Baby Jesus!! We've looked in every bin, tote, dilapidated box, and closet shelf, and He's nowhere to be found. It's not that we have no nativity sets; we have six or seven. Alas, the Baby Jesus we're looking for belongs to a large set that's to be our window display this year. The three kings kneel reverently, offering their gifts to...the floor. Mary and Joseph sit looking adoringly down at...empty space. Tom says it's a sign!! A poignant Christmas message..a parable.. about forgetting Christ in Christmas
It is a commentary that we feel such a loss. It's really just a plastic replica...a THING...after all. We have firm testimonies of the presence and reality of Christ in our lives. We try to emulate His teachings and practices. Yet, we're experiencing a rather traumatic vagueness about all of our other preparations. Our trees are up, but the other decorations are scattered here and there throughout the house, waiting to be arranged, polished, hung, USED. It's December 20, and I'm just now writing my Christmas letter. I HOPE I'll have my Christmas gift packages in the mail today...as long as there are 54 hours between now and the mailman's arrival at 5 I should make it.
Vale, our grandson, spent time helping me try to get my mojo on before he flew home to be with his mom for Christmas. We made lots of Christmas candy for the packages. We've made at least two broiler pan batches of fudge, which have already disappeared and not into Christmas boxes!!
We have a substitute! Since we thoughtlessly placed the Nativity set in the very spot our dog, Astro, calls his, we find that he has taken up a lonely vigil in Baby Jesus' spot. He's looking too!
Our year has been somewhat in keeping with the restlessness of our days without the Baby Jesus where he belongs!! We've had lots of ups and downs, highs and lows this year. Nothing specific, traumatic, or terrible...just life-changing. We'd settled into a retirement life of service, church and community, remodeling, genealogy, quilting, visiting. Nice, comfortable...Ho hum. Then, we received this subtle little email: Hey Mom. So, we just found out that the housing that we want to get in to...is pet free. No Astro. Of course Harmony is devastated. Christy can't take him because she already has 3 dogs. What would you guys think about taking him? I know Dad was at one point thinking about getting a dog. Anyway, no pressure, just let us know what you think ok? How could we resist?? A dog after all these years! He's a Corgi...a herd dog who herds Tom everywhere, including the bathroom. A few weeks later, our grandson, Vale, took up residence with us so he can spend his eighth grade year in White Salmon. My oh my!! We'd put homework, music practice time, video games, eighth grade angst, zits, sports, etc, etc completely out of our minds years ago. Now, they're back. We need that missing Baby where he belongs!!
We hope all is well with all of you!! We have loved and appreciated friends and family all year long through visits, emails, facebook entries, and phone calls. We're happy and reasonably healthy, and...at 3am this morning, while I was setting out our Christmas village, I found the little Nativity piece way down in the corner of a bin....Ahhh...I placed Him reverently and ceremoniously into His spot and remembered the phrase: Wise Men Still Seek Him. Oh that we'll be wise and always seek Christ's presence in our lives!! Love to All. Happy Holidays.

DO DREAMS COME TRUE?

I have a favorite wedding card which I buy as often as I can when I can find it. The card is all- white with an embossed picture of Cinderella stepping into her magic chariot. On the inside is the comment: Dreams Really Do Come True.



Dreams seem, often, to come true around Christmastime. A long-awaited toy becomes a bird in our hand; a visit from a friend or a dream trip seem to resolve themselves into magical moments. My thoughts have been on dreams coming true.



When our son, Tom, was a teenager, to our chagrin, he lived only to hang-out in the local parks with his friends and ride skateboards. There wasn't really a decent skate park or safe place for them to ply their craft, and they were often a menace to local drivers, merchants, and law enforcement. For most of his high school years, Tom tried to get a nice skatepark built at the park. He wrote petitions and requests, went to local town meetings, etc. Then he grew up and left home, but he never gave up on skateboarding and takes time to skate almost every day. A few days ago, in town for a few days, he remarked with pride, "Eighteen years after I started the ball rolling, there's a fantastic skatepark down in Bingen. Dreams do come true."



Steve, our Coast Guardsman, helped a young man with MS fulfill a dream when he helped him drive a Coast Guard boat and visit the Bodega Bay Station where Steve is assigned.



Recently, I was helping Vale with an assignment in his Pacific Northwest history class. He is doing a project on the Oregon Trail, which is living one's history, since we live in the area of the Trail and because Vale's great-great grandfather, Peter Franklin Clark, came to the Salem, Oregon area on the Oregon Trail. Frank Clark was an exceptional man--a man for all seasons. He worked the family farm in Missouri as a young boy, searched for and found gold during the gold rush, fought in the Civil War, commanding a local unit, Company A, Eleventh Missouri Cavalry, traveled the Oregon Trail and became a successful farmer in Zena, Oregon, served as justice of the peace, postmaster, veteran representative, and a deacon in the Baptist Church in there, and produced several journals and diaries. Only some of his journalistic efforts still exist. As I searched through Clark's journals, I found this gem in Clark's diary: "Here I must relate how old Uncle Ellis trapped me. We were talking about California and the demoralizing effect it had on young men, when I remarked that it was my firm belief that no one could stay in the California mines for a year without swearing, drinking, or gambling or even cosorting with prostitutes. 'Ha, ha, ha, now I have you, my boy,' he said. 'Did you not tell us a short while ago that you had done none of these things? So you had better own up.' But I would not.


So things went on, and I prayed in secret and persuaded myself that I could be a Christian out of the church as well as in it. When the war broke out, I went into it with all my energy, sometimes almost forgetting that there was a God. But I never wholly relapsed. I always came back when I got in a tight place, that is until August 21, 1864. In the hottest of the fight, I always asked God to protect me. But on this day, while the bullets were flying thick, it occurred to me: why should God protect me when I refused to know Him and by confessing, I then and there promised Him that if He spared me until I got home, that then I would do my duty. Very shortly afterward I received a letter from my wife, informing me that she had withdrawn from the Protestant church. Soon after, on the third Sunday in November 1864, I was baptized by the pastor of Pisgah, Reverend Henry C. Sollan, into the Baptist church. The following fall my two daughters were converted and baptized. About this time I was made church clerk, and so remained until 1874, when we all took letters before leaving for Oregon.

I have always regretted that I did not make public profession in 1846, for I believe today, February 15, 1905, that God, for Christ's sake, at the mourner's bench in Illinois, pardoned my sins. Since then, my sorrows have been many, my joys and blessings more than I deserve. But verily I believe that if I had come out on the Lord's side boldly, my sorrow would have been less and my joys many more. I therefore counsel you, my children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren who read this after I am gone, to at all times, and in all places, be ready to profess your faith and to acknowledge He who has saved you. But alas, if you're not saved, seek it now, never give over until you can say, "Jesus is mine."

I wonder if we, his many descendants, have made Frank Clark's dreams come true?