God With Us
“And the Word became flesh and lived among us.”—John 1:14.
I have used many meaningful books to prepare for Christmas during the Advent season each year. I keep returning to God With Us, Rediscovering the Meaning of Christmas, first published in 2007 by Paraclete Press and edited by Greg Pennoyer and Gregory Wolfe. There are scripture readings, essays by six well-known religious authors, and prayers, but I most connect with the paintings with each lesson. Some days I only find time to look at the illustrations and say the prayer, but they both seem to stay with me. Eugene Peterson explains it in the introduction. “Over and over again, they (artists) rescue us from a life in which the wonder has leaked out.”
On other days, I read everything, including remarkable essays about the meaning of the feast day of that week. I especially enjoy the readings during the twelve days of Christmas, when the pace has slowed, and there is more time to digest what this smorgasbord feast of word and art presents us. The book is now in paperback without the pictures, so treasure it if you can find the hardback.
Book Signing St. Mark’s, Sunday December 4th
After 8 and 10:30 service
Letters from my Grandfather: A History of Two Decades of Unconditional Love. by Joanna Seibert
A pediatric physician, an Episcopal deacon, a mother, grandmother, and author of ten other books on spirituality, shares letters from her grandfather after she left home. She responds to his letters in the present time, giving insight into two decades of unconditional love. $20 all proceeds go to Camp Mitchell.
Advance Praise. Letters from my Grandfather: A History of Two Decades of Unconditional Love.
I love this book, which began as a collection but became a correspondence. Dr. Joanna Seibert, a distinguished Professor (and practitioner) of Pediatric Radiology at Arkansas Children’s Hospital, had treasured a fourteen-year stream of letters from her grandfather and saved them all for more than sixty years. Lately, she decided to publish them, so that her own five grandchildren, among others, might someday enjoy and profit from them. Joanna’s re-reading of the letters now prompted fresh reflections, resulting in her writing a new reply for each epistle (there were sixty-six)! Both sets ––his to her back then, and hers to him this year–– are picturesque and full of detail in the lives that each of them has led. The yield to us is two biographies, his and hers: from one side, a World War I soldier, born in 1888, a Southern Baptist who made his living repairing watches in a one-man shop; and from the other, his beloved grandchild, a distinguished Arkansan on the leading cusp of the women’s movement, who taught and practiced medicine through a time of rapid change in that––and, it has often felt, in everything. He knew life in 1888, she in 2022. So here they are writing forth and back across that historical divide––and breathing gratitude and love on every page. Three times, Joanna says, in three different ways, “you saved my life.” But, above it all, “you taught me how to love.” She wants to pass it on.
The Rev. Dr. Christoph Keller, III