One may as well live in hope, for one never can tell what direction something of a Christmas miracle will come from ... the shepherds on the hills around Bethlehem certainly got surprised... let Mahaiia Jackson sing that story ...
... but also walk with care, lest one miss it entirely ... this relatively Negro Spiritual is the only one that shares how Herod the Great heard the news, but chose to remain wicked and even added to his wickedness on his way to his horrific end... listen to Kathleen Battle sing this story ...
And, with songs whose origins are contemporary in age to the music of Beethoven, we return to Hoffnung in 1825, where the brightness of hope keeps growing brighter and the tragedy for those who miss it ever greater ... the photographs here are from in and around the dry lake bed of my beloved Alvord Lake, some from a once-in-a-lifetime perspective...
Because Prince Solomo, ruler of the principality that contained both Hoffnung and Eitelkeitsmesse, was not one of those princes who felt the need to pretend everything was perfectly well in his realm when it wasn't, the situation at the ice-choked Eitel Dam came to the attention of a neighboring prince who had heard of ice-cutter Frederic Tudor in the United States and realized, 20 years from the beginning of the ice-cutting industry, that harvesting ice in the winter for the summer could become a thing in southern Germany and Austria. Prince Solomo said he could come get all the ice he could handle, and the two signed the "Ice Treaty" between them.
Obviously, this was all incredibly dangerous, and could only do so much -- thousands of men versus millions of tons of ice -- but it was something, and every little bit done relieved some pressure on the dam. The men of Eitelkeitsmesse and Sicherwald signed up to get paid to do the work as well, and across two realms, men in need of work would come to the site all winter. Meanwhile, the sluice gates stayed open, and the weather became exceptionally cold while dry -- no new snow, no rain, and the upper Eitel River at last froze over completely, all the way to its headwaters.
On December 20, therefore, the ice at the dam settled down, no longer visible above the top of the dam, and by December 23, the royal engineers declared that the weight pressing on the dam between water and ice had reached a safe equilibrium for the moment -- the dam was no longer holding beyond its capacity. So, for the time being, Eitelkeitsmesse had been granted a reprieve.
None of this news would get down the road to Hoffnung until December 27, but in the meantime, Herr and Frau Kantor decided they were not going to have a family celebration in the normal sense, and I happily fell in with their plans: they organized with dozens of volunteers to serve a grand Christmas dinner for two days at the church. All anybody who could not bring food had to do was come and eat, and there were never any leftovers because all of them went home with those in need. And therefore, this was the key moment, as someone from Eitelkeitsmesse cried out: "We were not brought here to lose all things -- God wanted us here -- God's love and light is in this place!"
Which, of course, meant that with all the show and wealth and pomp of Eitelkeitsmesse at Christmas time, its residents had never seen the love of God displayed in it.
"Vanity Fair," Frau Kantor said to me in English, "can only do so much."
This was the true "breaking of the dam," for in fact the Eitel Dam was exceptionally well made, and people may as well have said "Another year!" and not worried about it until the springtime. Perhaps with the sluice gates open, and the ice cutters working all those months as well, it might be May before there was a crisis, and if it were a relatively dry, cool spring, perhaps the dam would survive, and then ...
But the crisis at the dam had forced the real question out into the open: what was the religious and civic life of Eitelkeitsmesse like? Few there had questioned it much while they were not thinking of leaving, and while they thought there was no better place to be. Most there were still not questioning it; the Christmas celebrations had not budged and in fact were already at a higher pitch because they knew what we were yet to find out about the situation improving at the dam. But people from there, and thus their stories, were on the move.
The news came on the 27th to Hoffnung, and Herr Kantor could not take it any more. He was already overjoyed about Christmas with the people, and every household fed and happy in town and blessing God -- but when the news came that the destruction of Eitelkeitsmesse was no longer imminent, he started singing and people started joining in and it went on all day and half the night -- and the next day was Sunday, so Hoffnung went up and stayed up in its joy, and those called from Eitelkeitsmesse continued to arrive.
However, there was a situation developing: the rector of Eitelkeitsmesse had been preaching that the people who left were traitors to the town and did not have faith enough so that God would remove the ice by a miracle ... but the problem with that was that everybody in the realm now knew where the most powerful (seeming) prayers were being prayed every day, and the men from Eitelkeitsmesse who had settled their families safely in Hoffnung but were coming back to do the dangerous work on the ice were being quite vocal about their new rector and the warm, fervent faith of the people of Hoffnung -- and then there were the men of Hoffnung who went with their new friends and worked on the ice too, so, the so-called traitors had brought tangible help back to the ice with them!
Thus, although Simon Zischen was leading the expected Christmas services and even added a service of Thanksgiving and added a Te Deum -- not Haydn's this time, but Elsner's, which at this time was only five years old (and is one of my favorite rarities, bright and warm)...
For the first time in 40 years, an increasing number of the people over whom Herr Zischen enjoyed an iron grip began to look sideways at him. They knew the ministers and the people at Sicherwald and Hoffnung had prayed and worked for their salvation while Herr Zischen had told them to just sit still and have faith because of course God was going to protect them -- but the instant they stepped outside of Eitelkeitsmesse, they were going to be traitors and God would reject them. But the so-called traitors were apparently doing very well and had brought help back with them -- and Prince Solomo, son of the hated Prince David, had gotten a whole different prince to come and help with the ice problem.
Also, now that enough of the men of Eitelkeitsmesse had been paid to go up to Sicherwald and see the situation while working it, they understood the danger the town and their families were in. Even with all the work being done, a big enough avalanche or the spring melt would likely still overcome the dam. They were practical enough to understand: yes, God intended to protect them, and had given them warning and extra time to do what had to be done to enjoy that protection.
By no means was this a majority of the people of Eitelkeitsmesse. It was enough, however, that the rector of Eitelkeitsmesse could not take it any more either, and arrived in Hoffnung on Monday, December 29, 1825, to size up the town and Herr Kantor. He arrived at the time of the midday prayers for Eitelkeitsmesse and Sicherwald, and, depending on how long he stood outside listening, he would have heard Herr Kantor reverently reading from the Old and New Testaments, or perhaps the prayer of the day from Luther's own Small Catechism, before turning to the matters at hand ... requests for the needs but also joyous thanksgiving, and the occasion for the people to also pray aloud if they wished.
What we know shocked the rector -- because he fell out at the door -- was that Herr Kantor was not up in the pulpit, but down among all those people, holding hands with his congregants. Yes, he stood head and shoulders above most, and yes, that huge bass voice with those acoustics was most impressive, but he was humbly with the people, not above them, and let them speak to God for themselves. That a man with so much fame and influence would lay all that by just to stand as one with the common people -- it literally knocked Simon Zischen down and out.
Herr Kantor had been a medic in the army, and he pressed quickly through the panicked sudden crowd to the scene of the accident. The patient had glanced his head against the door frame, and the military medic instantly began what passed for concussion protocol in 1825. He tore his own vestments to apply pressure to the wound, and then gave orders and people moved: an improvised brace was made to immobilize the head and neck before the patient was brought across to a guest room in the parsonage, and then snow for an ice pack for the head set on a pillow and warm compresses for the hands and feet were swiftly brought while Herr Kantor saw to carefully turning the patient to the side as he vomited -- thus preventing aspiration pneumonia.
A rider was dispatched to Sicherwald to request that Prince Solomo send Dr. Lukas, his own physician -- in the meantime, Herr and Frau Kantor and I worked with the patient, who kept going in and out of consciousness in deep confusion for the rest of the day before settling at last into an exhausted sleep between Frau Kantor's herbed broth and the soothing low voices of Herr Kantor and me. The little Kantors were with the little Weisheits for the evening, Frau and Herr Weisheit having stepped up to take them so their crying would not disturb the patient.
Dr. Lukas arrived before sunset, checked on the patient, and then turned around with a strange look on is face.
"First of all," he said, "he is asleep and is out of danger for the moment, but did you notice anything that he said?"
"Yes -- the poor man is from Eitelkeitsmesse," Herr Kantor said, "and is just terrified about everything happening and all the losses he and his family are going to face -- the good news has not filtered into dulling his fears."
"We are praying for the healing of his soul, not just his body," Frau Kantor said. "He is suffering so much!"
Dr. Lukas sighed.
"His suffering is just beginning, unless the Lord intervene," he said. "I think it would be best for me to take him with me to Sicherwald, tonight."
"Surely you jest, Doctor!" Herr Kantor said. "At his age, with such a wound?"
Dr. Lukas shook his head.
"He might well go mad if he regains full consciousness here," he said, "for he will have to face that his life has been given into the hands of his enemies. This is Simon Zischen himself."
Frau Kantor looked again at the patient and would have been the next to fall out except that Herr Kantor and I got behind her quickly.
"It is him!" she hissed.
"And here he shall remain," Herr Kantor said firmly, "because of the severity of his injury, and because we are commanded to love our enemies by an even higher Prince than Solomo."
Dr. Lukas sighed.
"You are consistent, Herr Prediger," he said, "but you are wrong this time. You forget that the entire Zischen family will set upon you now, knowing that their patriarch is in the hands of their enemies. I can take him, and I will not be harmed: I belong to Prince Solomo's own retinue. You are unprotected."
"Not so," Herr Kantor said, "for you are in this house, and thus the house itself is under the prince's protection. Besides that, Dr. Lukas, I repeat to you what the prophet Elisha said to his associate once: there be many more with us than there are with them."
Dr. Lukas sighed, but smiled.
"His Highness did send a few guards with me, as it happens, because of the lateness of the hour."
Herr Kantor smiled and walked outside, and made sure he was overheard for some distance, giving a report to the first person who asked him about the injured man that was favorable, and how glad he was to be able to save the man's life.
"That will hold the Zischens off in sheer confusion," I said.
Dr. Lukas sighed again, but smiled.
"Bought yourselves until the morning, anyhow," he said.
"'Sufficient unto the day,'" Herr Kantor reverently quoted, "'is the evil thereof.'"
So, the Kantors' most unlikely houseguest remained that night, monitored by both Herr Kantor and Dr. Lukas. He did have more nightmarish episodes, and in listening to him rave I realized he had seen his grandfather's fall from hammer lord status.
"Lord Felix -- for so he insisted that he be styled -- had enjoyed his status until old age and lived a very high-handed life that ended quickly once no more wood could be fetched," Frau Kantor said. "To the Zischens, that was the end of everything -- I'm not sure the situation at the dam even registers because of what they witnessed in the fall of Lord Felix."
"Simon Zischen was just a child," I said, "and he must have adored his grandfather, and that must have hurt him tremendously."
"I'm sure it did," Frau Kantor said. "It is no excuse for what he has done, but we can understand that this situation at the dam is bringing up all that hurt and pain and fear and sense of helplessness again, and he, as the patriarch, has no more control over it than Lord Felix did. But, my young friend from the Americas, how much do we have control, ever?"
"We don't," I said. "We are not God and we destroy ourselves in the attempt to control what we cannot."
"Herr Zischen has come to mercy," she said. "We pray he understand and receive it."
Still later, I heard the Kantors talking in their room ... they had not quite shut their door.
"Gurnemanz, I confess I don't understand you," she was saying to him. "As a medic, of course you would have treated Herr Zischen, but he could have been off our hands tonight. Dr. Lukas would have moved him with care, for you know how he cared for you."
"I know he would have, Ursula," he said, "but Herr Zischen was brought to us for a reason, and we must see it through. He is a heretic. He is a wicked man. He is still someone for whom Christ died, and he has been made to utter the deepest fears of his heart to our ears so that we might intercede for him, and made weak so he might be cared for by us. God is reaching out in love and grace to him through us, and we must see it through."
"I am not in disagreement with you, mein Herz ... what a turn of events! What will tomorrow bring?"
"We will know when we get there. In the meantime, your destination is to rest in my arms before I have to go relieve Dr. Lukas."
"Definitely ready to arrive!" she said with a merry laugh.
Thus the night ended well, and the morning started well; Herr Zischen revived a little after dawn, and although startled to see Dr. Lukas and even more startled to realize he was in the home of Herr Kantor and more startled yet to hear how he had gotten there, he calmed down. His sons and grandsons were on their way into town to see about him, having heard that he had been injured and that the rector of Hoffnung had taken him in -- so, since they had been fed hatred, they came read for war ... but were just as startled to see the two rectors walking slowly in the beautiful if cold morning that was Dec. 30, 1825, the medic of the two making sure that his patient could both see and walk straight.
Herr Zischen was not suffering, and his mind was clear: he was delighting to give the illustrious history of Eitelkeitsmesse and its grand mills, having forgotten for the moment that he was supposed to take Herr Kantor for the enemy of all that... so that confused his descendants ... and they got even more confused when they found out that Herr and Frau Kantor and I had gotten breakfast together for twenty-two, accounting for them as well as Dr. Lukas and the prince's two guards. And so, all of them were pulled in ... and there was no resisting the joy of this "little household" in which every provision was received and shared with joy and gratitude! Let Kurt Möll himself sing it -- a little household, in every way provided for wonderfully (if a bit closer to nature than real life) even unto death!
By this time, the people in Hoffnung who were from Eitelkeitsmesse had realized their old rector and family were in town, and no sooner had they all piled out of the Kantor house than the idea spread through town that their new rector had managed to convince their old rector to come to safety with his family! Oh, the rejoicing that commenced -- oh, the grabbing up of every Zischen and showing them how well they and their families were doing in Hoffnung and introducing them to new friends -- and then taking them right up into the cathedral for afternoon prayer to pray prayers of great rejoicing that the Zischens had come to their temporal salvation, and they would not have to lose their beloved old rector! Herr Kantor stayed quiet and let it happen!
"Lord, I thank You!" said the man who had prayed with Herr Kantor the week before, "that the eyes of more of our beloveds have been opened, that they might see Your love and grace and mercy!"
And then the Zischens were invited to be part of the food distribution for the day, in which they, because their patriarch was injured and would need care, were blessed as generously as everyone else that came to receive -- joyful generosity that they would not even need to use that day because it was time for Mittagessen, and Herr Zischen's former parishioners were eager to stuff his entire family with good food in their new homes ...
After all this, Dr. Lukas had to go sit down in our home for quite some time, laughing uncontrollably.
"If this is not the most absolute non-lethal destruction of a proud family and its aims that I have ever seen!" he said. "I see why Edward von Schadenfreude is somewhere out there running for his life after dealing with you, Herr Kantor!"
"Who, me?" Herr Kantor said over about three octaves down and up, sounding like some massively overgrown and comically gifted owl.
Poor Dr. Lukas almost rolled onto the floor laughing, and it got even worse as the little Kantors, happy to be back home and accustomed as they were to join in with joy, all crawled over and started laughing with him!
"The Zischens could not get out of this town fast enough -- evil overcome with good, yet again!" I said.
"All those coals of fire that got heaped on their heads by your kindness!" Dr. Lukas said. "They will be standing under the dam telling the ice, 'Fall on us, and hide us from the goodwill of Gurnemanz Kantor and his flock!'"
"Well, I was only being hospitable since you told me they were all coming," Herr Kantor purred demurely, sending Dr. Lukas off into another fit of laughing. "Their patriarch was under my roof and was going to have breakfast with me, so I thought I would extend my hospitality a little more."
"And keep them in town and calm just long enough for the other events to take their course!" Dr. Lukas said. "Brilliant strategy!"
"My husband did tell you last night, Doctor, that there are many more with us than are with them," Frau Kantor said.
"Yes, he did tell me, and I remember the Biblical reference ... but I didn't expect to watch you three work it out in mortal terms!" he said.
"We in truth did not know all this last night either," Herr Kantor said, "but the Captain of the Hosts of the Lord will give instruction on what you need to do, when you need to do it!"
Only some hours later did I realize ...
"Wait a minute ... they experienced all that joy and love and peace and blessing ... and ran back to Vanity Fair, knowing its doom has been delayed, but probably not denied?"
"It could have been worse," Herr Kantor said gently to me. "Remember that Herod the Great told the wise men to come back and tell him where the newborn King of the Jews was so that he could worship Him -- so close to knowing -- but with something else entirely in mind. He had destroyed his own heirs, and was intent on doing more destruction ... so he did what it was always in his heart to do in the Slaughter of the Innocents.
"The Zischens always had it in their hearts to be in Eitelkeitsmesse, and rule there -- possibly to eliminate their opponents who they felt were drawing their people away also, but the chance of physical violence may never have been as high as some thought. Simon Zischen's grandfather reacted quite violently to losing his hammer mill, and I think Prince Solomo accounted for that in warning us, but he also said what the younger Zischen did in response to the existential threat proposed by Prince David."
"Everything came through the church," I said. "He led his people to pray for and celebrate Prince David's death through there."
"And when the existential threat of that ice against the dam came, he fought from his pulpit again," Herr Kantor said. "I suspect he wanted to size me up to figure out how to out-preach me to his own crowd ... but you notice I conveniently forgot to start out the prayers today and let the people pray! He will have to now out-preach his and his family's own experiences here in Hoffnung, in addition to the reality at the dam. Sunday should be very interesting for him!"
"I'm almost certain that he can sink to the occasion," Frau Kantor said as she walked in with the little Kantors, and Herr Kantor and I laughed uproariously at that.
"You're right, Ursula, all the same," he said. "I'm certain he can, because of what is in his heart. All of those who also have Vanity Fair as the temple of their life's aspirations will also hear him, and believe him. Yes, all of them could have the life we enjoy, but they do not believe it, and so, even when shown that life as utterly as even participating fully in it for a day, they will not receive it so it can be theirs ever after.
"This is the reason why, even with warning, many people are not saved from disasters eternal and temporal ... they will not receive a salvation that does not allow them to carry into it whatever idol they cherish in their heart. The Zischens cherish their centuries of high status in Eitelkeitsmesse. Simon Zischen succeeded through the church in keeping his family from falling to a common level of wealth and influence again as they should have by this time, and that will be their undoing."
"So ... they really had their opportunity a generation or so ago," I said.
"When it is said that 'man knows not his time,'" Herr Kantor said, "that is true of men, families, and nations. This is also why it is also written, 'now is the accepted time.' It is not actually that at some point in the future it will be too late. That is not how things actually work; we cannot fix the point. We do not know when in eternity it is decided that all the evidence being presented to convince us of the truth will continue to be presented, but for the purpose of showing others the justice of our condemnation for rejecting that truth.
"Even if we consider this purely as confined to the earth for a moment: if that dam breaks slowly enough for everyone still in Eitelkeitsmesse to run down and see what is going on, best believe they will change their minds about the wisdom of staying there. But it will be too late for them to escape.
"Yet it would have been too late since the first person from Sicherwald ran down to warn of the danger at hand. It would have been too late since Prince Solomo ordered an evacuation and offered to pay for it. It would have been too late since Prince David surveyed the area and publicly let it be known he was going to order the evacuation. It would have been too late since before Prince David in the early days of his rule shut down the last hammer mill and thus deposed Simon Zischen's grandfather for poaching wood from Sicherwald's territory -- for not stopping after taking even stumps and roots off all the places up to there, and thus making the avalanche now sitting against that dam inevitable.
"It would have been too late since the architect of the dam, sometime before 1525 said it would never hold against such an inevitable catastrophe, but the Zischens and their peers and Prince David's own ancestor compelled him to get it built anyway, upon pain of death. Because of that early case, we may say that it has been too late since Eitelkeitsmesse grew up around those eight mills in the 1500s.
"Yet because full consequences have not yet come, every generation has thought it might also reject the truth that has been extant since at least 1520. Every person not thinking of leaving Eitelkeitsmesse right now thinks that they still have time. The dam is holding; there are people cutting and removing the ice; the sluice gates are all open; the ice is no longer visible above the dam -- and then, Simon Zischen will be preaching that 'See? God is protecting us, and making people in other towns help us!' So, they think that at some point in the future if they really need to, they will have time ... while 300 years of ignored warnings are looming up over them.
"Every person still there when that dam goes will be at least 300 years too late in leaving! The innocent ones -- the children, the infirm of mind -- will die because of the accumulated bad decisions of 300 years of people around them, and every adult of sound mind will die because of their own bad decision in step with the bad decisions of the past 300 years. We are too far down the course of things to even imagine we might pull anyone out! They are at this moment in a raging torrent that has three centuries of momentum toward destruction and has only gathered power with each generation's rejection of the truth -- they might even see rest, but they cannot stay in it! It is a horror only music can make clear!
There is a song about a raging torrent still young in 1825 -- Schubert's "Der Strom" -- and from it, sung by Kurt Moll, I drew the idea of the horror of being tumbled along in an ice-choked torrent ... the character describes himself like such a river, sometimes even enjoying times in quiet realms, but driven on, unable even when at last seeking that rest, to remain in it ... too much momentum toward destruction, and the end comes quickly!
I shivered at the thought ... but Herr Kantor changed the tune into Brahms's Fourth Serious Song, just that quick, and back to faith, hope, and love!
"For you are called to no such nightmare, meine Tochter, but to this!"*
(The timestamp is [13:15], but you are welcome to listen to all Four Serious Songs and get to that happy ending!)
"We live and walk and rest in hope, meine Tochter, for there is a Blessed Hand Who can reach those who will be reached, who realize the truth and will come to His call to safety. We can be the physical hands that also reach, that embrace, that provide, that comfort, that encourage, in harmony with Him ... and to that, we are called."
"Can we back up a moment?" I said as I simultaneously and yet playfully backed up from the approach of Ulrike, Ulrich, and Ursula Kantor, who were ready for me to snuggle them before they were put to bed. "You're saying that everything that happens in physical reality proceeds from the invisible reality?"
"Of course," he said. "It is plainly manifest that all things come from the invisible, and shall return to it. The Eitel Dam was an idea and will very shortly be a memory. We ourselves, like the dam, are made of the earth -- dust we are, and to dust we shall return -- but the parts of us that are our true being shall return to the Hand Who formed us like unto Him in the spirit, and to His judgment of our eternal state. Yet from here, that will not be seen. Here we shall be a memory -- so all things come from the invisible, and return to it."
"That's some deep water right there," I said, "so, when we think about moving other people to do this or that ... those are waters we are not even meant to get off into the middle of and change the flow for anyone else, because it really can't be done, but we can work in the flow of the course we are fitted to be in."
"Now, meine Tochter, you see it," he purred. "The course to which we are called is to live, walk, and rest in hope, and receive all others called to do the same. It is too much for us to rightly attempt anything else. We are not indifferent to the present and future suffering of others: we may do whatever we can within our calling to make things better, and there is enough to do in that to occupy our energy so there is not so much to spend on matters we cannot personally affect ... yet we may bring our pleas in such matters to the One Who controls all things, and let anticipatory grief be accompanied by faith.
"Thus we are called to live and walk and work and rest, in faith, hope, and love, on every day as it comes out of eternity, and returns, when it is done, to eternity -- until one day, of course, we ourselves go into eternity! That's it. That's enough!"
The little Kantors' embrace was very warm and intense, and their mother came and joined them.
"We'll see you next time, Fräulein Matthaus," Frau Kantor said brightly. "Frohe Weihnachten!"
"But wait a minute -- we don't even know what's going to happen -- actually, wait a minute, yes we do," I said. "It hasn't come into time yet, but with 300 years back of it -- yes, we do know what is going to happen at Eitelkeitsmesse, and I don't need to see that."
"Not your nightmare, and therefore not to be your memory to carry into 1826 -- or later, as the case may be!" Herr Kantor said with a wink. "Farewell, meine Tochter -- until next time!"
He came and embraced me as well, and beamed his great smile upon me before kissing my forehead ... and from there, I floated through the Knockout Zone quite pleasantly through two entire centuries before arriving safely back in bed in San Francisco on Christmas Eve, 2025 ... 'twas the night before Christmas, and I had much to think about going also into the New Year.
The Ghost of Musical Greatness Past, being the hilariously witty spectral individual that he is, was having a few layers of an inside joke to soften the weight of some very heavy truth ... for 300 years is the time that his actual historical antecedent, basso profondo Kurt Möll, once said that the character of Gurnemanz aged in the spirit -- matured in humility -- between acts in Wagner's Parsifal so that he could see Parsifal, the one who can lift the Holy Grail. In manner like unto that at Christmas, only the humble shepherds were permitted to see the newborn Son of God, and his earthly guardians were already in the humble position of using a stable for a place to birth and swaddle and cradle -- in a manger -- the Holy Child. Only to the most willing to walk in humility are such things visible!
But now reverse it -- take the same 300 years for the faithless, and what will be invisible to them? Why can no one but Gurnemanz see Kundry as worth saving -- and see and prepare Parsifal for his temporal role? Or, knock off two zeroes and just make it three years ... the three years of my leaving and grieving and returning again and working so hard to invite and encourage people to come on the climb, only to see all of those with Vanity Fair in their hearts go right back! While I could show them and share the blessings with them that I was already being given access to ... to show them and let them taste even of that life in addition to the warnings I also had to give, I could not do anything about the inclination of their hearts!
And yet, the Child of Christmas, long since grown up, gone to the cross, and risen again, has not yet turned away a single person Who came to Him in faith -- He is able to save all those Who come to Him. I am, forever, a witness to His grace. On a far lower scale, I am not quite alone ... my students to two generations are with me ... my elders are in the best health they can be with my help ... everything in my communities that I can touch is as well as I can make it. As 2026 approaches, I have learned my lesson -- it is as much as I can do to do what I am called to do, and bless those I am called to, who are called with me.
Perhaps the grief will never quite go away ... and there will be time enough for it in future as people continue to find out what happens when you don't listen to wisdom. But my focus need not be on that: I can pair grief with faith in prayer for those matters, and live, walk, work, and rest in hope ... Hoffnung, of course, in German.
Ich lebe in Hoffnung, for real ... although my visit to the fictional little village in 1825 is complete, I know now what I am to do, as we cross over the threshold into the hope of Christmas, and a whole new year!
Merry Christmas -- Frohe Weihnachten -- Feliz Navidad!
