How to Brighten the World This Holiday!

Terrorism, 

     bombings, Paris,

          illness, disease,

               poverty, homelessness,
                    abuse,

                          joblessness ...

     We're in quite a mess! So what can I do to brighten the world this holiday season? 

. . . not just to people you know but to needy people you don't know.

In October and November I witnessed the miracle of a group of women, giving generously and, in fact, with abandon. Those of us who watched the beauty of giving each week by these ladies stood breathless with the joy of it. And that was the result of giving . . . JOY, JOY, JOY!

The Tuesday night ladies' Bible study at Parker Hill Community Church decided to make the Keystone Rescue Mission in Scranton and Wilkes Barre its mission this fall. The Rescue Mission is located on Olive Street in Scranton and on Parkview Circle in Wilkes Barre. 

Both facilities provide a "Meal and a Message" nightly to needy and homeless people. They organize weekly clothing and food banks and emergency cold night shelters. The Wilkes Barre mission runs an addiction program also. The mission does all of this through charitable contributions.

Each week the ladies of the Bible study responded to the assigned giving themes: "Sock-tober,"

The ladies filled the pantry of  the Keystone Rescue Mission
in November.

"Meat Me for Dinner" (canned meat and vegetables), "Cold Night Pick-me-up" (canned soup or stew), "Smell Me Night" (deodorant, toothpaste,  tooth brushes), "Hot Drink Fixin's Night"  (cups, creamer, coffee, hot chocolate, sugar).

The result? Well, here's the final tally of what the ladies gave:

524 pairs of socks

248 tootbrushes

285 toothpaste

148 deodorant

50 soap/body wash

30 lotion

214 shampoo

67 conditioner

427 razors

282 combs

18 hairbrushes

94 hair ties

435 soups

272 canned meats

308 canned vegetables and fruits

58 coffee creamers

266 pounds of sugar

80 packets of hot chocolate

600 napkins

3.717 cups

94 assorted hygiene and food products

Astounding!

The staff at the Rescue Mission barely contained their happy dance! What's the result of a group of

women responding to a local need and giving generously? Many people will be blessed for months this winter with these supplies. 

Director of the Rescue Mission
John Gleason on the left with another
staff member and
the sock contribution.

Your group or family can do this too! 

Here's the link to the "needs" list for the Rescue Mission:  http://www.krmalliance.org/this-weeks-needs-list/   This is a Christmas gift worth giving. Take the kids on a field trip to the Rescue Mission with your Christmas contributions. JOY awaits.

A gem God showed me this morning from Isaiah 58:6-14 (NIV) assures us of joy: "... if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness ... then you will find your JOY in the LORD ..."

FIND JOY IN GIVING TO THE HUNGRY AND OPPRESSED THIS SEASON AND MAKE THE WORLD A LITTLE BRIGHTER. 

                          A JOY-FILLED HOLIDAY TO YOU!

Robert Frost and My Eighth Graders

Every autumn I'm reminded of a poem that my eighth graders loved - "Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Robert Frost. This poem won Frost a Pulitzer Prize, one of the four Pulitzers he received for poetry in his lifetime.

Nature's first green is gold.

Her hardest hue to hold. 

Her early leaf's a flower,

 But only for an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf,

So Eden sank to grief.

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

The poem's theme is rather depressing, really. New leaves and new flowers symbolize hope, freshness, and innocence. New life is lush and vibrant, filled with the excitement of hopeful beginnings - as beautiful as gold. But the sad thing is - the gold only lasts "for an hour." Then, the leaves subside to decay and death just as the newness and hope of perfect Eden subsided to sin and death. As even the  joy of dawn subsides to day and eventual night. Surely, Frost says, gold is the hardest hue to hold for nothing gold can stay.

It certainly wasn't the joy of the poem that attracted my junior high kids!

It was the context in which they read the poem that resonated with them.

The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton was required reading for eighth graders, and "Nothing Gold Can Stay" is a gem buried amid conflict between teen gangs in the novel. The story's main character, fourteen-year-old Ponyboy Curtis, loses his parents in an automobile accident. Parented now by his twenty and sixteen-year-old brothers, Ponyboy and his brothers belong to the Greasers, a gang on the poor side of town. Always feeling like an outsider, Ponyboy struggles with right and wrong in a society that makes no sense to him. Life disintegrates for Ponyboy as he faces death and the murder of friends . . . life's gold was gone.

Ponyboy had heard Frost's poem in his English class. He repeats the poem to his sad, abused buddy Johnny. Eventually, Johnny is fatally injured in a church fire while saving some children. As Johnny lay dying, he whispers to Ponyboy, "Stay gold."

 Gold . . . the symbol of all that is good, right, beautiful, untarnished, and pure. "Keep that gold in your life," the dying Johnny says to Ponyboy. "Don't give up. Strive for the best."

"Nothing gold can stay?" Good news, Mr. Frost. There is the possibility of gold in this life and forever. When life doesn't make sense, when our culture and society seem to be disintegrating around us, when relationships crumble, there is still hope, there is still life, there is still the promise of newness ... for eternity because ... there is God, and with God all things are possible.

When all seems confused and lost, take heart, seek God, and find the gold that will never tarnish or decay.

.

A Hansel and Gretel Journey through China

Myth and folklore often have roots in truth.

The story of Hansel and Gretel reflects a truth that I saw illustrated on our recent journey across China.

Germany, circa 1840,  famine grips the land, and Hansel and Gretel's stepmother determines to take the children deep into the woods and abandon them there so she and her husband will not starve to death. The brother and sister overhear the stepmother's plan. As they are led through the woods, Hansel leaves a trail of bread crumbs to mark the trail and lead them home. Hansel assures Gretel that God will not forsake them.

Eventually, they discover a cottage made of gingerbread, cakes, and candy, owned by a wicked and cannibalistic witch who uses the candy to lure children in and eat them.The witch tries to fatten up and cook Hansel and Gretel, but some quick thinking on Gretel's part lands the witch in the oven. The tables are turned! The wicked witch is dead, The children discover  precious jewels in the house. They return safely home with the treasure for a happy reunion with their father and with the knowledge that their wicked stepmother is also dead.

Gruesome story with a victorious ending and a kernel of truth.

China, circa 2015, spiritual famine grips the land. Many people, lost in a  dark forest of atheism and humanism, search for the way home to a Father who loves them. But the wicked one is prowling the forest, seeking whom he may devour, luring them with sweet promises.The forest looms, fearsome and foreboding. An oven awaits those who take shelter in the way of evil. "Home" with their Heavenly Father means a rich inheritance of spiritual blessings and a final victory. This is TRUTH.

And so, we played Hansel and Gretel this summer, dropping bits and pieces of the "bread of life," from east to west in China, leaving a trail to lead the lost "home" to their loving Father. Far and wide, we scattered the "bread of life," in the form of mp3 audio devices called "Pathlighters" and "Wildlife Storytellers," from the East China Sea to the borders of Tibet.

Piper lives at the children's home. His "daddy"
there reports that he listens to
one story every day.

The Pathlighters and Wildlife Storytellers were collected by

taxi, van, and bus drivers,

bus passengers,

teachers,

cooks,

college students,

twenty-somethings,

grandmas and grandpas,

employees of large companies,

street vendors, 

children.

An excellent family.

THESE ARE THE FACES OF BEAUTUFUL PEOPLE YOU HAVE IMPACTED, DEAR FRIENDS! ...

THEY FOUND THE "BREAD" THAT YOU  SENT TO LEAD THEM "HOME."

THANK YOU FOR GIVING. THANK YOU FOR SENDING.

Sweet fellow travelers and companions.

University students.

My former junior high school students ... all grown up as teachers, parents, and
company employees.

A local senior citizen get-together.

Children in our orphanage.

Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty . . . whoever comes to me I will never drive away . . . For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day." 

John 6:35-40 (NIV)

THANK YOU FOR SENDING BREAD TO LEAD THESE PRECIOUS ONES . . . HOME.

The Orphanage Reunion

Our "kids" during a visit in 2006. Simon/Ming is seated, second from right. Ben is in the first seat on the right. The orphanage director wanted uniforms, and our friends in the US provided the funds to have them made.

The metal entry door clangs shut. Children's artwork lines the walls of the hall. The ceilings vault over ten feet. Frequent mopping leaves water pooled on the concrete floors. The walls are two-toned, the bottom sporting an institutional green, topped with white. Void of furniture other than a long, low table and small chairs, the room echoes in the emptiness. Voices rise faintly from the television room and the upstairs bedrooms. Feet clatter, and twenty-four children appear, excited, laughing, gibbering away in Chinese with arms open to hug the arriving American grandmothers..

Once again the ninis (Chinese for grandmas) are back in Fuzhou, China, at the Living Hope Children's Home . . .  and a long way from Layton.

Beginning in 2004 the Living Hope children drew those grandmas back across the world for six or seven visits. Bearing suitcases filled with English lessons, games, prizes, stickers, skit props, and craft projects, the grandmas settled down to do what grandmas do . . . talk, sing, laugh, tell stories, take walks, and hug. On that first visit to Fuzhou, the children ranged in age from four to eleven.

Last month, the grandmas returned again, after a hiatus of several years, for a special reunion with the children who had run to meet  them so often, but the "little ones" weren't so little any more. Teens and young adults greeted the ninis, some with an outstretched hand, others with a hug.

Simon, seated second from the right in the photo above, returned to the orphanage too. He was one of only two or three children adopted out, due to unusual restrictions in Chinese law. Simon (Chinese name "Ming") had been adopted by an American family from the state of Washington. Jody Bowser, a pastor in WA, and his wife Karyn have three children of their own, but hearts big enough to include the adoption of two Chinese children.

Simon/Ming with his orphanage "parents," Robert and Deborah, and
with his adoptive parents, the Bowsers.

Simon graduated from high school in June. His senior project, a ping pong tournament called "Ming Pong," raised over $1000 to buy a ping pong table and other materials for his orphanage home in Fuzhou. So the Bowsers brought Ming and the rest of their family back to Living Hope Children's Home this summer to meet the "brothers and sisters" and "mommies and daddies" he had not seen since his adoption about eight years before..

 Articulate, charismatic, and energetic, Ming is an adoption success story. He has enrolled at Lancaster Bible College in Pennsylvania this September. An interesting twist that our Chinese grandson would eventually attend college in Pennsylvania. Ming's desire is to live a life of gratefulness, thanking and honoring God for His watch care and love through his growing-up years.

Ben, seated in the first chair on the right in the photo above, also came back for the reunion. Ben's crippled leg was just one of the obstacles he sought to overcome. He left the orphanage at eighteen and struck out on his own to experience the world and live the life he'd seen on television. Things did not go well, Ben said. Now, twenty-one years old, Ben admits that he learned hard lessons about choices and the world's empty promises. He grew up fast.

Ben with American nini, Marilyn Stracham.

Ben took a six hour bus trip to spend a single afternoon with his "brother" Ming, his orphanage siblings, and the American ninis. And he wanted to tell those grandmas something special . . .

"You gave me some of the best memories of my childhood," Ben faltered. "As a child, I didn't understand the level of your commitment. I thought you came from nearby. I'm older now, and I know that you came a great distance. It cost you a lot of money and a lot of time and a lot of trouble."

Ben's hands and voice shook as he rose from his chair and invited the ninis into an adjoining, vacant room. Closing the door behind him, Ben lined the grandmas up, shifted his weight from his lame leg, and bowed deep and low to the older women. "I just want to say thank you. Thank you for your sacrifice for us. Thank you for the good memories." And he hugged each one.

No other reasons are needed to answer the question,

"Why do you go back to China?"

Becky, the tallest girl in the back row of the photo above,
works part time in a pharmacy and
 takes pharmacy courses at a technical school.

Amy, sixth from the right in the photo above,
spent the summer as a cashier in a local
supermarket.

Great Adventures

Adventure defined ...

• Scaling a precipitous mountain to a Tibetan village of eighteen families.
• Bouncing along on a rock-strewn dirt road between Sichuan and Yunnan, minus guard rails and ever-mindful of the thousand foot drop into the Long River.
• Bobbing about in a seafood shack, afloat in a bay of the East China Sea.
• Eating rose petal-filled pastry at the Lijiang fire festival, a folk celebration that had the city aflame with street fires.
  

All of these were part of the Great Adventure that ended today for me when I pulled into my home on Layton at 2 a.m. It's a long way, geographically and ideologically, from Yunnan and Tibet to Layton Road. 

Sleeping away the the twenty-plus hours of flying time during the long return from the other side of the world helped in reorientation, but nothing reacclimates a mind to the realities of Western culture better than Hollywood!

So I attempted to regain my cultural "legs" by selecting an in-flight animated movie called UP! Inadvertently, UP! had me contemplating the nature of "adventure" rather than laughing at an old man's bumbling efforts to get to South America.

Carl Fredricksen, the movie's main character, had married his childhood sweetheart, Ellie. They shared the mutual desire to follow in the steps of the great explorer Charles Muntz. In his dirigible, the Spirit of Adventure, Muntz had discovered Paradise Falls and a variety of exotic creatures in South America. Ellie and Carl made it their life-long dream to eventually visit Paradise Falls. In fact, he promised her they would do it.

But life happened. The Fredricksens had to borrow from their trip savings account to pay for tires,

house problems, and health issues, and in less than five minutes movie time the couple aged, Ellie died, the dream adventure never happened, and Carl sat glumly on his front porch, a bitter old man wondering where time had gone and regretting the adventure never taken.

The crux of the movie comes when Carl discovers Ellie's scrapbook "The Spirit of Adventure," and he sees the photos she pasted in the "Stuff I'm Going to Do" section. The photos chronicled their daily life together: marrying, setting up house, picnicking, sitting together in their easy chairs. Carl realized they had lived the adventure ... everyday.

This past month in China had all the elements of Great Adventure: foreign places, strange food, intriguing people, exotic cultures. But it was the adventure of a lifetime, not because of those things, but because it was an adventure planned and orchestrated by God for His purposes and His glory. Sightseeing and exploring were secondary. An adventure with God is not limited to these special foreign "mission" trips. Watching God do a work each day in people's hearts ... this is life's Great Adventure.

Like the Fredricksens, we can live the adventure every day.  A prayer for God to use us each day doesn't have to happen on a mission field. This prayer is not reserved for Fuzhou, China: "Lord, this day is Yours. Use my hands, my heart, my mind, my mouth for Your glory today. Let people enter Your kingdom and a relationship with You today, and open my eyes to see it happen, to see You at work in the world around me ... right here on Layton."

Great Adventures don't have to wait for Paradise Falls, South America, or Yunnan, China. Great Adventures for God can happen right here, right now.

Thanks, Lord, for helping me to live the Great Adventure everyday ...

even right here 

on Layton.

Liquid Gold ... On Layton!

A day on Layton or Maple or Main or First Streets probably begins in much the same way:

Flush the toilet, wash hands, fill the coffee maker, feed the cat, take your pills, shower.

The day progresses:

Throw in a load of laundry, put a roast in the crock pot, turn up the heat, drive to work or the market.

None of these things, not one, could be done without the presumption of the presence of water, readily available and in abundance.

Only a handful of times in my sixty years on Layton have we lived without water. It always happens in August when rainfall is sparse, and the weather is arid. The old, hand-drilled 120' well dries up, and only a foggy, brown liquid emerges from the faucet, dredged up from the well's bottom. We hate it! We complain! We buy water. We go to school unshowered, unshaven, and uncoifed. Poor us.

Ah, the hardships of living on Layton.

Within a week or two, the well recovers itself, and the September rains fall. Small trial. Small tribulation. Water is one of those assumed luxuries that we expect and take for granted in America. I have never lost nights of sleep wondering how I would keep the children hydrated and healthy with clean, plentiful water. 

But I have wondered about those mothers in Syrian refugee camps - no toilets or clean water supplies in their tents, jammed one next to the other. I have wondered about those mothers in the Sudan - never mind that there is no faucet in their huts; there is no well in the village! A trek to carry water back to her home might take a mother most of her day. And then there is the fear that the water, shared perhaps by bathers, goats, and cows, might be contaminated. Syrian mothers, Sudanese mothers, these are people who put daily worth on the value of water ... while I sit blithely on my own personal well. 

How blessed and fortunate we are for that undercherished, underappreciated, overlooked liquid gold of life ... water.

March 16th begins World Water Week, a proclamation of the United Nations. An organization called Samaritan's Purse is drawing attention this week to the plight of millions and millions, around the world who lack clean water.

Samaritan's Purse lists these statistics:
*783 million people don't have access to water.
*That's 1 in 9 people without clean drinking water.
*Water related diseases affect children's education, as well as their health.

Samaritan's Purse is a highly reputable organization, directing contributions for water directly to well projects throughout the world. The organization is run by Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham. To aid Samaritan's Purse in supplying wells for the waterless around the world, check out their website, http://www.samaritanspurse.org/water/pour-into-a-thirsty-world/  A small gesture, like helping to supply water, can mean liquid gold to a needy family. It is one small thing we can do to make a diffeence in the world from our easy chairs, perched atop wells.           .


And contemplating water reminds me of the "Living Water," Jesus. There are even more millions who walk the earth without the "living water," the spiritual satisfier, the life giver. We can splash about in the abundance of water, drenching our bodies and quenching our thirst, but we can be barren spiritually ... dry, shriveled up, dying. Jesus beckons us to come to the well that will not run dry. Try Him. "Whoever believes in me ... rivers of living water will flow from within them" (John 7:38).

Awash in liquid gold, I sit on Layton ...

Praying water, physical and spiritual, for the world.

Herein is our communal responsibility.

How to Travel the World Without Leaving Layton . . . Or Wherever You Live!

"Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all people cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends."     -Maya Angelou

Travel . . . the soul of adventure, magic, escape, discovery.

And who isn't thinking escape as the temps drop to toe-curling lows, the mailbox wallows into oblivion, and the car gasps for breath beneath endless drifts? The Caribbean comes to mind, Florida at the very least. Pipe dreams. For local responsibilities demand, the value of the dollar drops, terrorism runs rampant.

Locked tightly in my Layton cocoon, hands to the fire, blankets to the rescue, I settle down for a long winter's nap like the peonies by the front walk. Wake me in late April.

Cousin Bill from Glasgow, Scotland,
connects weekly with Layton vis Skype.

But last week the siren song of travel sang its sweet melody and called me from my hibernation to points . . . near. . . . Scranton and Wilkes Barre. No bathing suits, no sunshine, no aircraft and taxis.

For travel's glory is not only the monuments and mountains of foreign soil. It is people - their food, traditions, music, language, and culture. By this definition travel can happen even to our local city, where coal was king, if foreigners are involved.

And foreigners were the prime focus in last week's travel adventure.

First stop, Marywood College - for "Conversation Corner" with English language learners from around the world who are studying at the school. Afternoon conversation took me to Asia and the Middle East.

My first conversation partner was Zhicheng Zhang (also called Frank). Frank came to the U.S. just two months ago. "Fresh off the boat," eager, and enthusiastic about all things American,  he chose instead to walk the streets of Beijing with me, to remember favorite dishes, to practice his English and my Mandarin, and to reminisce about Chinese holiday celebrations. Frank's studies in health care will prepare him to return to China to "help his country."

Without the aid of technology or transportation, I left China for Kurdistan-Iraq, a Middle Eastern location which I will probably never visit. But Mr. Mohammed brought the country he loves to Northeast Pennsylvania. He, his wife, and children came to the U.S.two years ago so he could obtain a master's degree in public administration. Mohammed will return to Kurdistan at the end of the year to work for his government. War-torn and beleaguered, the Kurds have fought bravely for their country against Muslim extremists. My first Kurdish friend left me with a sweet taste of the courage, strength, and character of the people of Kurdistan-Iraq.

An avid traveler himself, Mark Twain once said, "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness." May I amend your thought, Mr. Twain? "Befriending people from around the world is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness." Our world is a hot bed of seething war and strife. What can one person do to make a difference in such a world, especially when travel to some countries is impossible? I suggest that the way to make a difference in the world is to make friends with the foreigners in our own backyards.

These trips to China and Kurdistan were early in last week's travel adventures. Sans jet lag and luggage, I hustled back to China again for the Chinese New Year celebrations. The holiday fell this year on February 18th.

Dr. Youyu Phillips, Keystone College

We heralded the year of the sheep with the Northeastern Pennsylvania Chinese-American Association at the King's Buffet in Wilkes Barre to do what all good Chinese and Americans do on a holiday - eat. Dr. Youyu Phillips, a professor of mathematics at Keystone College, is the president of the association to which I now proudly belong. Dr. Phillips and I met last week for the first time, but we talk every Friday on the phone as she is the Mandarin translator for our "Voice of Hope," blogtalk radio program to Chinese around the world:  www.blogtalkradio.com/voiceofhope

Shiyong Liang and Xiangni Wang,
Keystone students

Another Chinese dinner last week with American friends who have worked with me in China plus a Skype call to cousins near Glasgow, Scotland, and yet another continent, completed a week of rich cross-cultural interaction and friendship. I traveled continents last week, and the only expense was the Chinese buffet. I experienced countries because I experienced people. "My destination was not a place, but it was a new way of seeing things" (Henry Miller).

Passports and visas were  moot issues. 

Flight delays and cancellations, non-existent. 

Food, language, culture, and friendship, abundant and rich,

during the week I traveled around the world

without leaving

Layton.

Mid-Winter Magnificat

Astilbe, asleep beside the drive,
Peonies, cone flowers,
          day lilies,
               burrowed beneath down bits of snow, energizing, strengthening for the
                   grand appearance,
                           their pop, burst of color.
Rampant violets whose wild race about the yard
      is temporarily stilled, silent, awaiting the next season's      dance.
Pine trees, each branch iced to bending, green dresses tinged       with white swaying at the ball that is winter.

Garden soil, resting, quiet,

           readying for the unfettered abundance of tomatoes, beans.

Forest, aglitter in splintered sun,
           diamonds horizon strewn.
Flakes swirl east-west, north-south to an unheard                          symphony.
Unbroken slate of white, clean, unsullied,
           field of dreams . . . purity and perfection.
House, shingle-heavy, insulation-bound,

    nobly faces storm and completes its       mission - shelter.

     This is winter on Layton.

A waiting, a pause, a breath-holding,
     A Lazarus tomb, expectant, a resurrection in three days.
         Hope, it's coming.
              New life, warmth, green, buds, fruit.
He never fails, ever faithful, ever bringing new from old,
              ashes from beauty, life from death, growth.
The Great Maker, Renewer, will do the miracle. It will arrive . . .

             This Spring on Layton.

In 2015 How About a Little More . . .

Laughter?

Who among us couldn't use a little more?

Ed Wynn

One of my all-time favorite movie scenes involves Ed Wynn as Uncle Albert in Mary Poppins. Singing "I Love to Laugh," he literally lifted off the floor and floated to the ceiling, light with the freedom of laughter. Bert (Dick VanDyke) and Jane and Michael Banks caught Uncle Albert's infectious laughter and drifted up to join him, all of them laughing uncontrollably as they tumbled and twisted, free from gravity and earth's bonds.

The characters in Mary Poppins each had his or her own share of difficulty and heartache. Bert was a chimney sweep, Uncle Albert lived the humble life of the aged, and Jane and Michael's parents, over-committed to work and personal interests, remained uninvolved in the children's lives. But from the ceiling of that sitting room, they had a new perspective. And from those heights they laughed, the laugh of the unfettered, the released, the free.

In 2015 we need perspective and laughter. Not the laughter of scorn or derision. Not a laughter of fools. There's plenty of that afoot. We need the laughter of joy.

For what's to be seen from the heights of our sitting rooms? Lives filled with small miracles. Grace running rampant on mundane days. Love in unexpected corners. The presence of the Eternal. God working. Take a look around from up there. See the joy of the forever-loved, the never-left-alone. 

Those thousand pound weights, that bind our spirits to the floor, even to the basement, even to the sewer, cling more tightly as we study them, contrive to escape them, work to release ourselves. 

But feel the freedom, experience the loosening of the bonds, watch the chain weights of worry fall as our perspectives shift . . . to the God who says "cast all your care upon me." Lay each weight at the foot of the cross and slap your spiritual hands each time you try to pick it up. He will carry the burden. His love, His power, already proven on a cross. 

Feel the weights fall off. Soar. Free. Up to the highest heights. Laughing the joy of the redeemed, the protected, the blessed, the forgiven, the loved.

Author Ann Voskamp calls this laughter "oxygenated grace." Author Anne Lamott calls it "carbonated holiness." Let's live high in 2015 on the oxygenated, carbonated joy of our freedom and position in Christ. And let's laugh.

It seemed like a dream, "too good to be true," writes the psalmist, "when God returned Zion's exiles, freed from their bonds (italics, my words). We laughed, we sang, we couldn't believe our good fortune . . . God was wonderful to us; we are one happy people." (The Message, Psalm 126:1-3)

Yes, in 2015 we could use a little more laughter in the world . . .

and, certainly, here on Layton.