On December 24, 1865, Phillips Brooks was half a world away from home and feeling older than his thirty years. Only six years into his ministry, Brooks had been called upon in May to give the funeral message over President Abraham Lincoln.

“The First Noel” is one of the oldest Christmas ballads still sung today. The song first appeared in print in 1833; however the song goes back at least three hundred years prior to that. The origin is also unknown as both France and England claim it as a part of their heritage. The spelling of “noel” would seem to indicate a French connection, though there seems to be quite a lot of evidence pointing to this carol migrating from Britain to France rather than the other way around. What cannot be doubted is the faith and spirit of the song’s writer; his Christian witness comes alive each time the old carol is sung!

Keeping with the past two years, in the month of December I have been sharing the stories of how some of our beloved Christmas carols and songs came to be. The information comes from a little book I own: “Stories Behind the Best-Loved Songs of Christmas,” by Ace Collins. In this third year of sharing these stories, I am starting off with the song that will probably be sung the first Sunday of December, aka the first Sunday of Advent, in nearly all churches everywhere. The song, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” is one of the most appropriate songs for Advent. It also happens to be one of the oldest Christmas carols still sung today. This popular hymn dates back to the ninth century and represents an important and ancient series of services celebrated by the Catholic church.

Several seeks ago I shared with a Bible study group that lately, I’ve been feeling so much anxiety, with gut-wrenching worry as I watch the evening world news. I really didn’t WANT to watch the constant bad-news stories, but at the same time, I also couldn’t NOT watch. I think some would call it an addiction, but I don’t categorize it like that. My friends that evening at Bible study all knew exactly the feeling I was having, and most of them said they just don’t watch the world news anymore. But I want to know what’s going on in the world, at home and abroad. However, since that conversation, I have tried to watch less news and instead, fill that time with something else—walking the dog, for example. I’m also trying to read some kind of “uplifting” news daily to fill my head and heart with happier thoughts.

You probably saw this on TV news a couple weeks ago. I got a cold chill that didn’t go away for hours after seeing the story on TV news of five people who were stranded over 200-feet underground at Grand Canyon Caverns when the elevator malfunctioned, and they could not get out. The group was stuck down in the caverns for about 30 hours.

For whatever reason, this has been “the summer of Jell-O” at our house. It started back in spring/early summer when we had some Jell-O salad left over after some event; I don’t remember just what exactly. As Bob and I both enjoyed the leftovers the next couple of days, something clicked with both of us and we began making a big bowl full of Jell-O with canned fruit every week. All summer. And we’re still going. Haven’t tired of it yet. It’s just refreshing, and we have enjoyed the various flavors and fruits stirred in. I say “we” are making it because I have written out instructions, starting with “boil water,” for Bob to make it, which he has. To say we are on a roll, making Jell-O at least 20 weeks in a row would not be an exaggeration; in fact, that’s probably on the low side. Remains to be seen whether we continue this through winter; I don’t know. We don’t want to get to the point where we never want to eat Jell-O We recently traveled “home” to Goessel for our 50th Class Reunion. Seriously. Count ‘em... Fifty years since we graduated from Goessel High School. I am going to have to quit denying it soon—we. are. old. But anyway, we had a wonderful time with our classmates, gathering in a barn that has been converted to a gathering place. Of the 37 graduates in our class, five of our friends have passed away. Another seven chose not to attend or were unable to come, such as one dear classmate, now living on the West Coast and suffering with MS. Everyone’s senior pictures, which had been enlarged to black-and-white 8 x 10s, were hanging from the barn’s rafters. While some of our number actually don’t look much different, there were a few others that have changed quite a bit. Silvery-white hair will do that to a person. Only one classmate kind of had me stumped as to his identity. Being seriously overweight can do that to a person. Teachers were also invited; we had five of them share the evening with us. Considering we have always been known as “THAT class,” I’d say it was amazing to have five teachers WANT to come spend an evening with our class. One teacher, now 80 years old, drove (with his daughter) from their home in Canada. It was a very special evening of visiting, catching up with the “where do you live now?” and “have you retired?” questions and answers, as well as reminiscing about “the good ol’ days.” In true geriatric fashion, we all forgot to discuss when shall we get together again and who will make the plans. Perhaps we are closing in on the age when our get-togethers will be at each other’s funerals.

The prisoner was a woman, unusual in 19th century America. And the fine was large for that day—$100.00 plus court costs. After being held for quite some time in a New York jail, the prisoner finally had her day in court. It was a brief day as lawyers for the defense and the state presented their cases quickly. The verdict was equally fast in coming; she was guilty as charged. Anyone could understand that. There followed the sentencing, and it seemed all over. But almost as an afterthought, and possibly out of courtesy to his unusual woman prisoner, the judge asked if she wished to speak. She stood tall and erect in the prisoners’ dock.

Several years ago, I believe it was the fall of 2019 b.c. (before covid), one of the keynote speakers at the Kansas Housing annual conference was an author by the name of Sarah Smarsh. She is a journalist who was published in newspaper columns and magazines, but her greatest success came from the first and only book she had written: “Heartland — A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth.” Almost an overnight sensation, Sarah’s book soared almost instantly as a New York Times bestseller.

Onomatopoeia! My what a word! It means every sound effect that you have ever heard: crash, crunch, zing, zip, meow, munch, roar, rip, sizzle, crackle, splat, kerplunk, bang, clank, woof, thunk, hiss, whiz, oink, moo, sniff, snap, cough, achoo, dong, ding, pong, ping, bang, bing, zap, zing! Pow! Bowwow! Burp! Slurp! Whish! Swish! Oops! Whoops! Click and Clack! Boo hoo! Choo choo! Cock-a-doodle-doodle-doo! I think that when you’ve read this list you’ll get the main idea... All these crazy sound effects are onomatopoeia! Once you’ve learned to say this word you kind of want to yell it; but even if you yell the word I bet you cannot spell it! But you can learn to spell this word in just a single day...

There’s a little word that gets overused in some circles, and just hearing it can drive me a bit over the edge. Like, you know what I mean? You know, like, really? It’s been around, like, for centuries, as a verb (“I like you guys”) and a preposition (“just like that”), among many other uses, and more recently, as an interjection (“like, that was so cool!” or “It was, like, all I could handle!”). It seems this word gets (over)used, like, more than any other word in some conversations. My granddaughters, for example, can barely say a complete sentence without, like, interjecting this word.