Sunday morning, the last Sunday before Christmas, the last Sunday of Christian Advent, i became a better person, experiencing an emotional morning due to my sister Martha and my brother Joe.

Maureen and i are on top of my favorite mountain (especially after retiring my skis several year ago).

Just before 11:00, my brother-in-law and i went to the Signal Crest Methodist Church. We parked and walked up to the balcony and sat in the back row.

For an hour, i was mesmerized. My sister Martha plays in the bell choir, which performed to excellent pieces, especially their version of “Noel.” The pastor, Dave Graybeal, gave a sermon centered around Mr. Rogers and his neighborhood. Ordinarily, i politely act like i listen to sermons while thinking about other things. Dave’s resonated with me. Even Tracy Gartman’s presentation to the children moved me.

There was a goodness in the air. It moved me.

i am a lucky man to have my sister and brother-in-law in my life.

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Martha’s and my brother Joe is a retired Methodist minister. He is also brilliant and holds master degrees in theology and philosophy from Boston University. He wrote a book, The Elements of Prayer, modeled from Strunk and White’s Elements of Style. It is a moving book that is for everyone to contemplate on their relationship with their higher power. i gave a copy to Marty Linville, one of my best friends in San Diego and his wife Linda. They were very religious Catholics. Marty was awarded the Army’s Silver Star due to his valiant action when in charge of a 105 howitzer artillery unit that was overrun by a North Vietnamese company. Marty told me several years later that he and Linda would read Joe’s book on prayer every month or so because of the grace they received from it. i will pick my copy up and read it again when i am feeling a bit low.

Joe is a wonderful man. He is super smart and reads deep and thoughtful books. He is a terrific family man, and loves his adopted New England. His wife Carla Neggers is a talented and successful novelist.

i am a lucky man to have such a brother and sister-in-law

Previously on Saturday evening, i opened up my brother Joe’s Facebook post:

Some fifty-odd years ago, I was walking back to my fraternity house late one evening. I had been studying for my last final exam, in Phenomenology. I had found a quiet place on the Scarritt College campus that I used when I really had to concentrate on a subject as I always did when reading Husserl. While I had been inside, it had started to snow; the ground was lightly covered and flakes were still drifting down. As I walked past Wightman Chapel, I noticed it was partially lit, the only light around, and inside someone was playing Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor. I was transfixed, even though the piece was not one I associated with Christmas. It was a moving moment, but then, the player stumbled on a difficult passage, stopped, and started the section over, getting it right. I stood there, listening, and then the player stumbled again, restarted, finished. I stayed until it was over and then made my way back.

I knew I would remember those moments, but it wasn’t until some years later that I began to grasp why it had been so meaningful to me. It was the stumbling blocks, the “scandalon” in New Testament Greek, that made it special, that made it become…human.

Not otherworldly, not spiritual in a shallow sense, but human, something with which another human could connect.

We are anticipating and about to celebrate The Incarnation, God made flesh, God become human, God possibly stumbling, possible of and for connection with us. Sometimes, as this year, the Christmas “Spirit” seems sparse, so I think on those moments, that connection. And that is my Christmas wish for all who read this: that you connect to others in our humanity which promises the divine to us all.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

i was deeply moved when i read that post. Grace took me by the hand once again. i felt peace washing over me. Peace for all along with a wonderful Christmas with your loved ones.

Thank you, Joe, Carla, Martha and Todd.