Christmas letter - 2003 (sent June 2004!)

It’s time for the Christmas letter again. Oh, you say it’s already been? Well, how about the Easter letter?

So, let’s see…Fifty is wonderful. I have had so much fun this year. I love being slim – I have so much more energy and I am very active. I eat better than I ever did before and have high hopes of this body lasting for quite a long time! My Dad sent me a T-shirt for my birthday that said “The first half century was great – now let’s see what God has in mind for the next one.” Indeed.

I have a wonderful room mate this year. Karen is an M Div student preparing for ordained ministry. We enjoy sharing the apartment, we have found we share much in terms of our history and families, and we live comfortably and peacefully together.

This last summer I mastered the fine art of roller blading (inline skating), after a few spectacular tumbles. I went out on the trails around here several times a week with a buddy and we would cover 15 miles at a time – great exercise and a very graceful thing to do. I had always envied people on their blades – it looked like poetry in motion. And now that I can do it, it still delights me.

I continue to love living here in the States near family. My aunt and uncle celebrated their 80th and 85th birthdays and 60th anniversary all in one big bash last summer. Since I live here in the same town, I got to spend time with all the cousins who came in for the do, as well as having three of my siblings staying with me in my seminary apartment. Norb continues to write plays and we went to see one of them produced last week – a timely spoof on politics; and Dolores is retiring this year from her 35-year job as Music Director for a large church. She is worried that she won’t have enough to do but, knowing her, I’m sure she’ll soon find all sorts of things to fill in the gaps. One thing she’s already talking about is learning Spanish. Needless to say, these two are a source of great inspiration to me. When I see what they’re doing, I can quite happily see myself teaching at university well into my eighties.

Which is a good thing, since I’ll be close to retirement age before I finish my PhD. Well, not quite. Many of you have heard that I have been offered a place at the University of North Carolina to study Old Testament under two Dead Sea Scrolls scholars, and I’ll be moving out to Chapel Hill in June in order to start five years of studies in the fall. It still feels like a dream.

I’ve been beavering away at my Masters thesis in a final burst since January and have been loving it – the reading, the writing, the research, the whole package. I come out of the library in the evenings just bubbling over with the delight of it all and finally dared to say “I am doing what I was created to do. This is it.” I finally know what I’m going to be when I grow up! I’m now into the last six weeks of the thesis and am glad to say it’s going well, although I’m looking forward to getting it finished. I graduate in May with a Master of Theology – not bad for the kid who dropped out before finishing her undergraduate studies – two Masters degrees in six years!

I still work for Weight Watchers as a Leader, teaching and learning in equal measures. I love the work and the people whose lives I touch and who touch mine.

I’ve been down to my sister Susie’s in Houston twice in the last six months – once for Thanksgiving week, and once for just a couple of days in February when she and her husband Jim renewed their marriage vows in church at their 10th wedding anniversary. Their girls Zoe and Lillie are 8 and 6, and they love their Aunt Lizzie coming to visit – especially when she and their Mama sing them songs, and when she takes them out skating!

At Thanksgiving I also spent a few days with my brother Jon and his family near Atlanta. And we had a wonderful nostalgic 24 hours with an old childhood friend from Beaconsfield, Charlie Taylor, who was over on business. I lost count of the number of times we said “Do you remember…?”

So, in the last year I have spent time with all my family. A good thing. And, ultimately, the reason I have chosen to stay here in the States these days.

If you are one of the people to whom I have not written personally recently, please know that I think of you – each one of you – and keep you in my prayers. And I will write. Eventually. In the meantime I hope you know that I am writing this because I can't bear to lose touch.