“When suddenly you seem to lose all you thought you had gained, do not despair. You must expect setbacks and regressions. Don’t say to yourself “All is lost. I have to start all over again.” This is not true. What you have gained you have gained….When you return to the road, you return to the place where you left it, not to where you started.”

― Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love

We’ll soon complete two years of pandemic life. Good grief – who could have predicted? Well, if you were paying attention, lots of people were calling for this to happen sooner than later. And so here we are. I see surges continue but according to the health sources, not some wacko website, while the current variant is spreading, if you have your 2 dose vaccine and your booster you’re likely to just feel crumby, not be hospitalized. Don’t have your vaccination because no one is telling you what to do, except that wacko website, you’re likely to be very sick and hospitalized and then cared for by those who are vaccinated.

Ah, what a crazy world.

We’re laying kind of low this week – reading and resting and it’s great. Especially since it’s freezing cold here! I saw yesterday on the weather network website that we have the greatest degree of temperature variation of anywhere in the world. Yup, it’s cold – colder than normal and winter here can be rather frigid.

Hey but on the good news side, it’s December 27th so the days are getting more light which means the earth has begun it’s axis tilt towards our orientation for spring and summer. Yes be optimistic.

One final thought. We had Christmas Eve together – just missing Philip who was out serving the people of Edmonton bravely, and what a treat that was. After having dinner here (the traditional cabbage rolls and perogies for my birthday) we did our Christmas Eve candlelight service together. Edmonton Temple (see JO) pur together boxes for families to use. It had cookies, hot chocolate mix, candles, and small cards to protect the wax from running down onto your couch.

We each had a candle and at the appropriate time (just before the kids went to bed) we lit the candles sang Silent Night and then blew out the candles. What struck me was Carlyle’s immediate reaction – “that was my favourite part”. Yes, indeed Carlyle it has always been my favourite part. We’ve led lots of candlelight services in the past and there really is something diviine about it.

I think this year was even more profound because here we were just a gathering of six, three children included, acknowledging in a very simple way that Jesus is the light of the world, that without Him we are locked in darkness. As another carol puts it, “Born for us on earth below…”

Thank you to those who were thoughtful enough to go the extra mile to make this a great experience.