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12/21/2003: "Day"

I left the house befroe the sun came up. I got home an hour after darkness fell. In between, we celebrated two Advent services; held a children's Advent festival with crafts, cookies and song; sent a bell choir to the local senior citizen housing; were the last stop on the ecumenical "Walk to Bethlehem", with costumed wise men, gospel readings and more Christmas hymns; and this evening the junior highs are going out to sing carols to the shut-ins. In addition to the four Christmas Eve services and one on christmas morning, we have two weddings on the schedule in the remainder of the year. Unscheduled but necessary are the two funerals we will hold this week; two church members died yesterday. It's funny that it took that, the slap in the face that those deaths brought, to fill me with something like the Christmas Spirit. Life never seemed so precious, light never seems so precious. Christmas is all tangled up in grief for me and it seems right: a man I knew collapsed and died and we sang, "Joy to the World". The junior high girls don't want to admit they sometimes still play with Barbies. May those who sow in tears, reap with shouts of joy!