Assault on Saint Agnes is available here. Just click this link!
When you finish reading any book (especially mine) please review it at www.amazon.com, www.barnesandnoble.com, and www.goodreads.com. Your review increases the chances of someone looking for a new book greatly. Authors appreciate your review, even if it is just “I thought this was a good read and will give it to my dog to chew. I especially liked the ending, because it made me feel better when he killed all of the main characters. (no spoilers, please)” Those few words (more than 20, fewer than 1,000 is ideal), and a 1-5 rating, make or break how the search engines find us. Thanks in advance.
I have multiple events that I attend as Santa each year. As of this moment, 2017 holds 39 events in 30 days. Throw in the potential things waiting to gel, it’s 42. Add in the stuff in the previous three months and we pack it up to 45 places where I’ve showed up as Santa so far in 2017. But one customer, one set of friends, is the most special to me: Hope Kids. (Read on, but if you’re looking for an end-of-the-year-charitable-donation to make, this is the best outfit I work with that takes care of children and families.)
Recently I attended the holiday party for these families at The Tradition Companies. The party, sponsored by these fine people and Chick-fil-A of Bloomington, MN, brings together families of some very amazing children who are facing serious illness. The sponsors get a wish list from the children, and provide the items in beautifully wrapped packages that that old ham, Santa, gets to hand out and take the credit for the nicety.
I have been working with Hope Kids for a long time. It touches me in ways that I am hard-pressed to convey to you. I am pretty sure that it comes down to bravery, cheerful brightness, and strength in God during a very hard time for the families. Wednesday night was no exception.
Part way through the process of taking pictures, talking to small people, praying with big people, and handing out gifts, one of the staff of Hope Kids asked a little girl how it was going. Her response, “This is better than awesome”, was provided with 100% sincerity. Because it was better than awesome.
We live in a society where people with wealth, and corporations, are pretty uniformly viewed as miserly takers. I can stand in behalf of several major businesses, and a whole lot of wealthy individuals, and attest to their kindness, care, and largess. This was more than a party with some trinkets. This was more than a great meal of foods that kids enjoyed. This was a celebration of the lives of these families. This was a moment of joy, and unreserved emotion, in a situation that would bring the best of us to our knees.
I will not carry on much longer, but one family stood out from the crowd last night. I was so impressed with the loving kindness they all lavished on their son that it humbled me more than a bit. I’d seen them over the past few months/years in different lights as Santa. Always working to make the boy a central part of the events. I found out last night that this was his final visit to see Santa. His final Christmas. He was entering the hospice phase of his life after the party.
I get choked up when I think about the love, and loss, that this family will experience this season. I am honored to be a small part of that love. I am blessed to volunteer with an organization like Hope Kids, and that I get to know the people of the Tradition Companies and Chick-fil-A in the course of these events. I am so very lucky to be healthy myself.
Please take a moment now, before you click the mouse, to pray for these families and ask God to give them strength and comfort this Christmas/Hanukkah season. Give generously to Hope Kids if your heart is moved to do so. And, perhaps most importantly, cherish those you love today. They, and the future, are not promised to any of us in this world.
Stop by for more music on Friday, and on Christmas day there will be a special short story up here for all the fans of Santa. Written in the style of Bobby Kurtz.
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Assault on Saint Agnes is available here. Just click this link!
When you finish reading any book (especially mine) please review it at www.amazon.com, www.barnesandnoble.com, and www.goodreads.com. Your review increases the chances of someone looking for a new book greatly. Authors appreciate your review, even if it is just “I thought this was a good read and will give it to my dog to chew. I especially liked the ending, because it made me feel better when he killed all of the main characters. (no spoilers, please)” Those few words (more than 20, fewer than 1,000 is ideal), and a 1-5 rating, make or break how the search engines find us. Thanks in advance.
Pray for them all. Call them. Skype with them. But keep them in your hearts tonight. You are in their thoughts.
God, please bless them all.
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Assault on Saint Agnes is available here. Just click this link!
When you finish reading any book (especially mine) please review it at www.amazon.com, www.barnesandnoble.com, and www.goodreads.com. Your review increases the chances of someone looking for a new book greatly. Authors appreciate your review, even if it is just “I thought this was a good read and will give it to my dog to chew. I especially liked the ending, because it made me feel better when he killed all of the main characters. (no spoilers, please)” Those few words (more than 20, fewer than 1,000 is ideal), and a 1-5 rating, make or break how the search engines find us. Thanks in advance.
We spend an awful lot of time doing two things at Christmas time in the United States: catering to five year old children, and hawking large luxury items that most of us don’t actually need. What we don’t do is spend much time on loving each other as Jesus Christ would have us do. He didn’t just hint at it, but he put it in the operating manual for the human race, and made sure that his disciples passed it along for all of us to have in written form. We call it the Bible.
It’s not just for the children. This picture was taken at an event honoring a Great-grandmother. Her whole family came together to celebrate this good woman. I was blessed to be included.
Part of where we’ve veered off the course is in our focus on the pretty, the cute, the adorable. That leaves the stoic, the worn, the vulnerable, and the elderly out of the equation. Oh, we’re all good with Santa being a senior citizen, and grandma is handy for the punch-line of stories when she’s not baking cookies. But do we really take that message of Jesus and work on it this time of year? Or, for that matter, is this the only time of year we kind-of-try-harder to follow him, but still miss the mark?
This Christmas I’d like to ask you to take up my challenge: love someone who isn’t little and cute. Love that grandparent who has nobody living nearby. It doesn’t have to be your grandmother, but what about the older woman down the block? Invite a lonely friend over for dinner on Christmas. Make a date to feed the homeless in February – everyone does it on Thanksgiving and Christmas, but what about Valentines day?
Perhaps you know someone who’s suffering from a tragedy in their life. The loss of an unborn child, the death of a close friend, a pet that has left them too soon. I might add your coworker who’d suffering from depression, or the teenager who used to baby-sit for you that is longing to be accepted and loved, or who has seen a classmate lost in a traffic accident. Instead of heading out with your fraternity brothers to have a cocktail on Thursday, what if you invited this person noted above to have a cup of coffee? Perhaps bake them those Christmas cookies you love so much, and deliver them with a note of appreciation and love for all they have done for you over the years? Maybe, just maybe, Christmas doesn’t come from a store. Maybe it means a little bit more. (Dr. Suess, I stole that from you.)
The point of this missive is simple: there are a lot of people in need and hurting this time of year. The joy and frivolity they see around them sometimes deepens the depression and darkness they experience. You can be that ray of light that brings hope and joy to them.
I am doing this today because one year ago I had a gentle talk with someone who fit the bill I’ve described. Their life was pretty grim. Sadness had overtaken them in ways you cannot imagine. So at a Christmas party where I was appearing as Santa, I spent a few minutes just talking to them about this tragedy they were experiencing, and how while it seemed the end of the earth, it would pass into time. Good memories of the person they’d lost would eventually take the place of the grim images that filled their personal vision. I gave a message of hope, largely based on having overcome some loss in my own life these many years.
This past weekend I was at that annual party, and handed out the gifts as I always do. In the bundle I was to distribute there was a small envelope marked “For Santa.” I put it in my bag and didn’t open it on the spot, thinking it was my payment for the event. It was better than payment. It was a note of thanks for that small chat a year before. A chat that had provided solace and a glimmer of light to someone who was pretty sure all the light had gone out of the world that week.
You can be that light. All you have to do is be kind. Be outgoing toward one who is in need. Go outside your own shell just a bit. It’s really quite simple: simply reflect the light that Christ provides through the mirror of your love.
I’ll talk to you next week. Remember to drop by on Friday for more Christmas tunes.
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Assault on Saint Agnes is available here. Just click this link!
When you finish reading any book (especially mine) please review it at www.amazon.com, www.barnesandnoble.com, and www.goodreads.com. Your review increases the chances of someone looking for a new book greatly. Authors appreciate your review, even if it is just “I thought this was a good read and will give it to my dog to chew. I especially liked the ending, because it made me feel better when he killed all of the main characters. (no spoilers, please)” Those few words (more than 20, fewer than 1,000 is ideal), and a 1-5 rating, make or break how the search engines find us. Thanks in advance.
Enjoy your family. Enjoy your job. Enjoy the gift that Jesus brought to us all.
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Assault on Saint Agnes is available here. Just click this link!
When you finish reading any book (especially mine) please review it at www.amazon.com, www.barnesandnoble.com, and www.goodreads.com. Your review increases the chances of someone looking for a new book greatly. Authors appreciate your review, even if it is just “I thought this was a good read and will give it to my dog to chew. I especially liked the ending, because it made me feel better when he killed all of the main characters. (no spoilers, please)” Those few words (more than 20, fewer than 1,000 is ideal), and a 1-5 rating, make or break how the search engines find us. Thanks in advance.
