Holiday Greetings to Family and Friends - Christmas 2005

Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way? Well, not quite, but almost all the way.

This has been a whirlwind year for us and it seems like we just got through Easter when fat frozen turkeys started filling the freezer space at the local market. That tricky Father Time outdoes himself every year! All of you who are getting a little more mature like us will understand this perfectly. To those who are younger, this probably sounds more like a personal dilemma.

I have a somewhat simplistic theory about how this works. When you are born, you start a long journey uphill, striving for physical maturity, mental development, social acceptance and understanding of the world around you. Somewhere in mid-life there is a long and almost flat curve in time where work, personal accomplishments, family and friends (but especially work) carry you through the days with variable momentum, much like a film in slow motion with periods of fast forward. Retirement should be a gently sloping downward curve, but it has a surprising twist. It's like living on a plane where time takes a more circular and liquid form. The people and events inside your circle are entirely by choice for the first time in your life. If the circle is strong it sustains your vitality, and with the right attitude and good choices, grace and peace take the form of reality. Your struggle is less focused on forcing change in the world, but more on living in the world we have with dignity. God is there with you before your first breath, when you step through the bounds of your circle, and for eternity.

Sadly, there are losses and regrets along the way. In late July of this year, Bill's step mother passed away very suddenly. We also lost a dear friend from Bill's home town. They were both very significant in our lives and will be dearly missed. May God bless and keep them always.

Bill's nephew Adam is serving in Iraq as a helicopter pilot and we ask your prayers for him and for his wife and children at home. Our prayers include Adam, the cares and concerns of both of our families and those of our friends and church family. While there is not enough room to be specific about each person here, prayers are a strong and sustaining force of protection and assurance through Christ's mercy and we are thankful for yours.

There are also many joyous occasions. This year brought us several opportunities to travel. Instead of our usual routine of flying we chose several auto-excursions, many within our home-state of Texas. In late April we had the opportunity to spend ten days with Bill's cousin and his wife touring the hill country and parts south for wild flower and bird watching, visits to some beautiful state parks and a day on Galveston beach. We spent time in July and August visiting friends and family in Colorado and Kansas. This visit was a long one so we were able to plan visits to several of Bill's friends as well as my own and we had a spectacular time.

September brought us the opportunity to spend 3 days at Mo Ranch, a church retreat in Hunt, Texas. We have 4 regular trips to Houston during the year to see Bill's doctor for check-ups and we always plan fun activities around the appointments. Early in the year we visited my cousin in Shreveport, LA and we have a consistent flow of visitation between our house and my cousins' house in Richardson, Texas, just outside of Dallas. Mid-August we visited another cousin of mine in Strawn, Texas for the 1st ever reunion of the cousins from my mothers side of my family. We planned a trip to South Padre for late September, but this got side swiped by Hurricane Rita. Perhaps next year!

While our travel was restricted to the Southwest this year, we are hoping and planning for a trip of a few weeks to New England next year. To each of you in the Northeast, we miss you and love you dearly.

We were also blessed with many family visits. My eldest daughter and her husband came for Christmas last year, both ending and starting the year beautifully for us. They are coming back this year (hallelujah!), and this time they bring great news. My daughter is pregnant with their first child. I can't wait for the happy event! Bill's second cousin from Michigan visited us for a few days in the spring and shared some genealogy gaps with us. My youngest daughter, Carla and some friends came in early April and spent a full week just being lazy with us. My cousin's son Josh from Louisiana, now 21, flew here and spent 3 days with us. My sister Marilyn and her daughter Ashley spent their vacation in June with us and my cousin Carolyn and her husband Ed have taken the time and energy to come from Dallas several times to share in our lives and help with the tasks of making our new home beautiful and comfortable. We even had a visit from my high school friend Susan and her husband. I had not seen Susan since February of 1965. Many of my friends from high school have been in touch since we moved back to Texas.

As many of you know, we chose to spend Thanksgiving with Bill's father in Kansas this year. He is in an Assisted Living facility there, now living on the nursing care side since he requires more medical care than he did in the past. Joe is 96 and doing pretty well for his age. He has some short term memory problems and is now confined to a wheel chair most of the time, but he has a miraculous sense of humor and still has a lot of stories and songs to share with everyone. He was very glad to see us and (I think) just as relieved to see us go because he was tired after our visit.

Our church and our community are a large part of our lives when we are here at home and this year has been an exceptional one in that respect. Besides worshiping at the morning service at First Presbyterian Georgetown on Sundays and participating in Men's Fellowship and Rebekah Circle, we've had numerous opportunities to enjoy fellowship, bus trips and get-togethers with a great group called Active Christian Treasures. It's been a wonderful place to make new friends. Our neighborhood at Sun City also has regular monthly activities, such as a monthly potluck, and we participate as much as we possibly can. Other activities that we enjoy here are walking in our neighborhood and on the trails, swimming and the computer club. We're hoping to take even more advantage of the club and activity opportunities going forward. Health is a big focus for us (that age thing again!) so the fitness center would be a good target for more activity.

Statistics say you won't get this far in the letter, but if you do, this last paragraph is reserved for special blessings for you and yours. May this season be peaceful, full of faith and family and blessed with good times. May your senses be showered with the feelings, sights, sounds and tastes of the holiday season. May your gifts be all that you hoped for and more than you need. We send our hopes and joys to you for this season and every day that follows. We send our prayers for your sorrows and our wishes for your future.

God Bless and Keep You Till We Meet Again.

Love,


Bill and Paula

Christmas

Christmas

Christmas comes in packages thick and thin;
Carefully wrapped, engraved on a ring.
Christmas by the seaside listening to waves;
or spent by the fireside popping sweet corn.

Christmas with tinsel, bright lights and holly;
Children and bicycles, cookies and grins.
Christmas with empty seats at the table;
praying for loved ones, soldiers and friends.

Christmas day charged with high emotions;
love and good will mixed with poignant regret.
Christmas when it’s all that you can do;
to get through the day in your slippers and jams.

Christmas with memories of having less;
or Christmas’ past when things were simpler.
Christmas with secrets bound in bright paper;
sleep lost to play Santa to tow-headed tots.

Christmas when most of these things have gone by,
your greatest joy sharing the hope of others.
Christmas surrounded with voices of angels;
shouting hallelujahs for the birth of Christ.

No matter which Christmas has come your way;
honor the first and Christ’s celebrated birth.
Be comforted in spirit, in heart and in mind;
for the promise of Christmas is hope for us all.

Be thankful for blessings and count them twice;
pray for peace on earth and good will to men.
Christ brought us the gifts that fill our needs;
Forgiveness, love and eternal life.

Paula J. Roberts
copyright December 2005

Merry Christmas and Adapting to American Culture

The following post is a response to an article being passed around on the internet that is reported to have appeared originally in a “Tampa Newspaper”. I did a cursory search for the article with no results. Apparently, this would have been a letter to the editor. The author was upset over several things, including the recent hubbub about “Merry Christmas” being politically incorrect. I think the letter reflects correctly and sometimes unfortunately some of the ways Americans are thinking about the majority vs. the minority adapting to American Culture. I do not agree wholly with the author’s comments, and since this was sent to me by a family member, I felt compelled to reply but not to pass it on to my “A” list. I’d love to know what others think about this. The article is reprinted at the bottom of my post so that my own thoughts are not buried. The text has not been altered from the message I received by email; it is quoted in full.

Oh my darling daughter in law…you made me think again! Do you know how exhausting this is?

I disagree with the part about not caring about another persons’ culture. As unique as it is, American Culture is a hybrid concoction of world cultures. We also benefit from learning about the cultures and sensitivities of other peoples. I also think that it’s a travesty that Americans in general have not bothered to educate our people in the major languages of the world. That said; it is NOT our job to adapt America to each new-coming culture that touches our shores. If we chose to live and work in a different society anywhere else in the world, we would be expected to assimilate and I believe that it is a natural and reasonable expectation.

Freedom of religion has been taken out of context by extremists on all sides. I believe in freedom of religion. I believe that the intent of the statement in our constitution regarding freedom of religion and of speech is literal. The context is being skewed and re-skewed daily to suit the purposes of those that would limit the literal meaning. An individual living in this country should be able to practice their religion without persecution. It is also required that we respect others and allow them to do the same within the bounds of the laws of this land. It is not required that we change American civil law to accommodate minority or cultural views, including radical Christian views that would infringe on non-believers.

My personal political views run slightly to the left of center. I believe in the rights of both men and women to live freely on this earth within the implied laws of human decency and respect for each other. I believe that the written law of God and the laws of the land should work hand in hand to ensure the free will that God gave us. I believe that free will was intended as a tool for responsible decision making and purposeful, lawful behavior.

I am a Christian and Christ is my center. It is my hope and prayer for the world that Christian love will envelope and protect all humans on earth. Christ did not ask whether the people he encountered were “Christians”. Christ asked us simply to put the past behind and follow him. He did not seek out the perfect, the educated or those who were well off. He did not indicate a preference for denominations, languages, political interests, or skin color. He ministered equally to both men and women. He told those who were hungry for His word that following Him was a difficult path filled with doubt and persecution. He acknowledged that some would not follow, but He promised those who did believe in Him everlasting life and the kingdom of heaven. He asked his heavenly father, God to forgive us our sins. Even in His death, Christ was an advocate for all humanity.

There is an ancient line in the sand between believers and non-believers and sadly between those who believe in God, but differently. All wars can be traced to a great extent to this same ravine of mistrust, divisiveness, hatefulness, imposed religious and racial concepts, and lust for personal gain, territory and wealth. My fear is that if we continue to draw these lines in the sand in our own country and fail to fill them with the sands of understanding and enlightenment; all will be lost in this war.

Tying this all back to the original subject, which is adapting to the land you live in; I think Emma Lazarus “got it” when she wrote the famous poem that is quoted in part on the statue of liberty:

The New Colossus
By Emma Lazarus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From herbeacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your
huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

The first time I read this poem as a child, I knew what American meant to me. More importantly I had a sense of what it meant to others who are not so much like me. It’s a shame that the whole poem is not on the statue, because the full context takes on new meaning. “Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp.” implies to me that by entering these shores, a new and different life apart from the one that is left behind will greet the newcomer. It is a call to adapt and to become an American and a promise for acceptance and freedom for those who do.

God Bless America and Merry Christmas. May freedom ring always, and may the golden door be passed with an open heart by all who enter. May God and our armed forces protect us from harm by those who enter maliciously.

Paula

This is the text of the email that stirred my response:

This was in a Tampa Newspaper....Please Read

Will we still be the Country of choice and still be America if we continue to make the changes forced on us by the people from other countries that came to live in America because it is the Country of Choice??????

Think about it! All we have to say is, when will they do something about MY RIGHTS? I celebrate Christmas...........but because it isn't celebrated by everyone..............we can no longer say Merry Christmas. Now it has to be Season's Greetings. It's not Christmas vacation, it's Winter Break. Isn't it amazing how this winter break ALWAYS occurs over the Christmas holiday? We've gone so far the other way, bent over backwards to not offend anyone, that I am now being offended. But it seems that no one has a problem with that.

This says it all! This is an editorial written by an American citizen, published in a
Tampa newspaper. He did quite a job; didn't he? Read on, please! IMMIGRANTS, NOT AMERICANS, MUST ADAPT. I am tired of this nation worrying about whether we are offending some individual or their culture. Since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, we have experienced a surge in patriotism by the majority of Americans. However...... the dust from the attacks had barely settled when the "politically
correct! " crowd began complaining about the possibility that our patriotism was
offending others.

I am not against immigration, nor do I hold a grudge against anyone who is seeking a better life by coming to America. Our population is almost entirely made up of descendants of immigrants. However, there are a few things that those who have recently come to our country, and apparently some born here, need to understand.

This idea of America being a multicultural community has served only to dilute our sovereignty and our national identity. As Americans... we have our own culture, our own society, our own language and our own lifestyle. This culture has been developed over centuries of struggles, trials, and victories by millions of men and women who have sought freedom. We speak ENGLISH, not Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, or any other language. Therefore, if you wish to become part of our society, learn the language!

"In God We Trust" is our national motto. This is not some Christian, right wing, political slogan.. We adopted this motto because Christian men and women.......on Christian principles............. founded this nation..... and this is clearly documented. It is certainly appropriate to display it on the walls of our schools. If God offends you, then I suggest you consider another part of the world as your new ome.........because God is part of our culture. If Stars and Stripes offend you, or you don't like Uncle Sam, then you should seriously consider a move to another part of this planet. We are happy with our culture and have no desire to change, and we really don't care
how you did things where you came from.

This is OUR COUNTRY, our land, and our lifestyle. Our First Amendment gives every citizen the right to express his opinion and we will allow you every opportunity to do so! But once you are done complaining....... whining...... and griping....... about our flag....... our pledge...... our national motto........or our way of life....I highly encourage you to take advantage of one other Great American Freedom....... THE RIGHT TO LEAVE. It is Time for America to Speak up If you agree -- pass this along; if you don't agree -- delete it! AMEN I figure if we all keep passing this to our
friends (and enemies) it will also, sooner or later get back to the complainers,
lets all try, please