It’s getting harder to find Christmas cards.  I normally do a Christmas letter that some people read.  I know because they call me.  I don’t send Season’s Greetings cards.  I believe it’s okay to send a “Happy Hanukah” card to my Jewish friends.  I think it’s also okay to send a Christmas card to anyone.  I just don’t send “Happy Holidays” cards. 

I got this email and decided that it needed to be passed on.

The Newfoundland Fisherman  

A boat was docked in a tiny Newfoundland fishing village.  A tourist from Toronto complimented the Newfie fisherman on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took him to catch them.  "Not very long," answered the Newfie.  "But then, why didn't you stay out longer and catch more?" asked the Torontonian.  The Newfie explained that his small catch was sufficient to meet his needs and those of his family.  The Torontonian asked, “But what do you do with the rest of your time?"  "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, and take an afternoon nap with my wife. In the evenings, I go into the village to see my friends, have a few drinks, play the guitar, and sing a few songs... I have a full life."

 The Torontonian interrupted, "I have an MBA from Queen's University and I can help you!  You should start by fishing longer every day. You can then sell the extra fish you catch. With the extra revenue, you can buy a bigger boat."  "And after that?" asked the Newfie.  "With the extra money the larger boat will bring, you can buy a second one and a third one and so on until you have an entire fleet of trawlers. Instead of selling your fish to a middle man, you can then negotiate directly with the processing plants and maybe even open your own plant. You can then leave this little village and move to St John's, Halifax, or even Toronto!  From there you can direct your huge new enterprise."  "How long would that take?" asked the Newfie.  "Twenty, perhaps twenty-five years," replied the Torontonian.  "And after that?"  "Afterwards? Well my Friend, That's when it gets really interesting," answered the Torontonian, laughing.  "When your business gets really big, you can start selling stocks and make millions!"  "Millions? Really? And after that?" said the Newfie. "After that you'll be able to retire, live in a tiny village near the coast, sleep late, play with your children, catch a few fish, take an afternoon nap with your wife and spend your evenings drinking and enjoying your friends."

My wife and I went for a drive this past weekend.  The weather was good to put the top back on my wife’s car; although the sun did beat down hard at times.  The back roads placed us in the shade much of the time.  There were places that were part of our stomping grounds over forty years ago and places that were familiar but to which we had never driven.  I was not surprised, in a way, to see the beauty of our state.  We drove from a mountain top in Skyline from which we could see for miles and miles into a lush Paint Rock Valley.  It is a beautiful area of our state.

Almost fifty years ago, I invited a friend from Venezuela to ride with me to one of my churches in extreme north Sand Mountain.  We went to a spot where it was possible to see Seven Mile Island in the Tennessee River.  It was quite breathtaking to me.  I could not imagine, however, that my friend could be even more impressed.  “There is nothing this beautiful in Venezuela,” he remarked, somewhat in awe of the mountains and the fall foliage.  I had always thought, from my National Geographic magazine experience, that one of the most beautiful places on the earth were some of the sights in Venezuela.

I enjoy traveling.  I’m very glad I had the opportunity to do some of that.  There were beautiful and historic places to see in Europe and Israel.  I am reminded, however, of a passage of scripture about one who searched for the world only to find the greatest riches at home.  Sometimes we become so familiar with our home turf that we fail to see its awe inspiring beauty.  We sometimes refer to the “grass is always greener”. 

I got up the other morning and before I caught myself, I thought about the too small trousers I had put on.  As I put them back on the rack, I remembered that I had put them on the back of the rack because they had gotten too small.  Not true!  The pants had not gotten too small; I had gotten too large for them.  Yet, I don’t know how many times I have heard that sort of statement.  Oh, I had to quit wearing that because it got too small.  Unless you washed it and it was wool or un-shrunk cotton, it didn’t get too small: you got too large.

I’m amazed at how adept we are at putting the blame for our own faults somewhere else.  “He made me do it.”  “He made me mad.”  These are attempts to take away the guilt and responsibility for our own actions and feelings.  It is amazing sometimes to me how we give power to people with whom we disagree when we blame them for our feelings.

In his book, Whatever Happened to Sin, Dr. Karl Menniger says that we have tried to eliminate sin by rationalizing it.  The Bible is clear, “If we confess our sin, God is faithful and just to forgive our sin.”  What is rationalized or blamed on someone else is not forgiven.  It just festers inside of us like a boil.  God forgives what we confess.  He doesn’t forgive us of what we blame on someone else.

I don’t do much about wearing again those pants in the back of my closet so long as I fail to acknowledge my failure.  I can’t get in them because I got too large.  It is not the fault of the clothing that I can no longer wear it.          -tony

I was basking in the sun some time ago remembering hot July days of long ago.  My dad and my uncle had a restaurant near the high school.  The baseball field was right across from the back door, from which they served food.

I remembers the Fourth of July with its baseball games, the flag (not flags), the ice cream man (“Snake”) with his dry ice and ice cream.  Snake would give us kids a small piece of dry ice, which we quickly moved from hand to hand until it evaporated.  Sometimes we would put it in water to watch it smoke and zip across the cup.  We had not heard of air conditioning, so the 95^o weather didn’t seem to bother us.

We sometimes look back on such times as the “good old days.”  Those were good days.  However, they were also the days of polio, sweltering in the heat in summer and, in my case, building a fire each morning in winter in a large kerosene heater.  My grandfather died at 69 with a heart attack.  He had had “heart dropsy” for a number of years.  No one had ever heard of surgery on the heart or blood vessels.  In some of my fondest memories, in winter, my grandfather and I would sit by the coal heater, and soot and ashes covered the furniture and the floor.  It usually took two hours to go from Geraldine to Birmingham down a rough and winding road.  There were no helicopters to rush an accident victim to a medical center in Birmingham.

I heard about the tragic shootings at Virginia Tech.  I listened as the body count rose.  I watched the sickening tape of the tragic young man who committed the murders and the suicide.  Yes, I am shocked, but not surprised that something like this has happened.  Violence is the way of the world.  Everyday we read of a hundred or two hundred innocent civilians being killed in Iraq.  We see that millions die on the African Continent each year of disease and famine.  Hundreds of thousands have died due to ethnic violence. 

The Bible speaks of a time three or four thousand years ago when it said, “every person did what was right in his/her own eyes.”  There may have been times across the past several centuries when some kind of morality was enforced, but it did not stop violence.  There is a right and a wrong, but we seem to ignore it again today.  Several years ago, the Russians were requesting Bibles because they had lost their moral compass.  It became required reading in the schools.  One of my current news magazines says that it is time for a return to studying the Bible in our schools.

I love the sunshine, especially as it streams into my office in the morning; however, for a time it was blinding for about an hour.  New blinds, for which I am grateful, keeps out the blinding part while letting through enough light that I don’t have to use the overhead lights early.

I love the sunshine that warms me on cold days.  I remember how we used to stand next to a dark building during recess on cold mornings, using the heat of he sun and the building to keep us warm. 

I love the sunshine when I want to work in the yard (I don’t do much of that.).  I don’t like how it sometimes causes the weeds to grow so quickly.  I don’t like it when the grass is burned and my shrubbery has to be watered daily with expensive water

I love the sunshine when I ride in my wife’s convertible, but it burns my head so much that I have to wear a rather uncomfortable cap.

The weatherman and the farmers say we need rain.  Rain puts a damper on being outside.  Frequently it comes with storms.  I know we need rain.  I worry about the water table being lowered by its not being replenished by rains.  I am also concerned about the damage that storms may cause.

In preparing again for our Competency Fair, I was reviewing some of he slides that were in use last year.  I was looking over the spiritual issues that we had discussed.  Some of those stuck out because of what I had long known but am becoming aware of in a new way: 

§         Does/Did my life have meaning?

§         Will/Do my family/descendents respect me/my values?

§         Is my family saved?

I often hear these questions asked in a number of ways.  People want to tell the stories of their lives and what they have done that were good and right.  People need validation.  They sometimes express regret that their values were not passed on or joy that they were.  The third of these questions also grates on the lives of some of our patients.  They are questions that I believe almost every person asks.  If you had to answer them today, what would the answers be?

I love to hear the stories.  I understand the question of values.  I pray for those who have not yet made a commitment to their faith values. 

From time to time as I walk out of my door at home, I think about my possessions and how badly I would feel if some of them were taken.  On the one hand, there doesn’t seem to be that much to worry about, but there are a lot of things that I would not like to lose.  I have pretty good insurance that would replace some of the items.  I have a couple of rifles that I would hate to loose.  One of them I bought when I was about sixteen.  It is something that I want my son or grandson to have.  Even more important, I would hate to lose the 22 that belonged to my grandfather.  It is not faithful to fire.  It is a single-shot is sometimes difficult to cock.  It is not safe to fire, but it has family value.  We have hundreds of pictures that have value to no one but my family.  I have a plastic sandwich bag filled with pocketknives.  My father and grandfather gave more than one to me.  I’d like to pass them on.  None is very valuable, but they represent memories.

When I think about the importance I put on some things, I’m ashamed of myself.  There is so little that is really important.  Relationships are important.  Things always take a second place.  No one knows this any better than many of our patients do.  While no one has specifically said it in those words, I get the message often.  It teaches me to take a hard look at I value my personal things.

Many of the folk from New Orleans have learned something about values.  People in many war torn areas of our world have learned something about values.  I saw a program on some of the “lost boys” who traveled from Somalia to Ethiopia to Kenya (25,000 started; 12,000 arrived) who have come to the United States.  They had never seen a light switch.  How much we take for granted! 

Well, Christmas has come and gone.  It may be time to begin shopping for 2007!  I’ve enjoyed some of the television programs about the birth of Christ.  Interestingly, the stories of Christ’s birth didn’t come until later in the spreading of the Gospel.  The resurrection was the event that changed and charged lives.  The first “Good News,” was, “Let me tell you about one who rose from the dead.”

One of the points made by some of the commentators is that the date for Christmas was chosen to coincide with the winter festivals and the New Year’s celebrations already in existence.  There were, for several centuries, several dates tossed about by the early church.  Alabama was the first state to set a date and make a holiday for Christmas.  They did so in the mid eighteen hundreds.  The probable time for the birth of Christ was in the spring.  I’m not sure how scholars come up with this either, but there seems to be a consensus that it was in the spring.  I don’t think it matters much when we celebrate Christmas.  Hanukah, the Jewish festival of lights, usually comes close to Christmas every year.  Many people, especially African-Americans, celebrate Kwanza around Christmas too.  It’s the time of the year folk get time off from work to be with their families.

I like Christmas.  I like the get-togethers.  Most of the special foods are too rich with calories and fats for me to eat much anymore.  I’m glad I don’t have to listen to most of the Christmas songs again until next year, but some of them are good all year long, like “Joy to the World”.  Someone told me the other day that we need a foot of snow in January so we can rest up from the holidays.  Snow is beautiful, but too big of a mess for me.