If you have the time and inclination, please come along with us on the jaunt we took into the deep hills this afternoon. The slideshow is posted at right. Let me know what you think.

Having just celebrated my 52nd birthday a few days after Christmas, I'm
well into the last quarter of my life, even if I'm given man's allotted
"three-score years and 10." I hope I've acquired some wisdom along the
way. I want to — I long to.
Along my journey, I've made many
foolish mistakes, poor decisions, done things that have hurt myself and
those I love along the way. One of my prayers for this new year, and
for the rest of my life, is that I will grow in wisdom, in good
judgment — that I will be able to look at life through a clear lens of
truth, not one sullied by selfishness or made foggy by foolishness, and
that my steps will be firmly planted in the footprints left behind for
me by the One who goes always before us.
One part of the search for
wisdom, for me, is struggling to make sense of sorrow and pain and
loss. It's a huge question, one that much wiser and more expansive
minds than mine throughout history have fought to make sense of and
explain, but one, I think, that we all have to come to terms with if
Life is to be anything but a fool's pinball game to us.
I'm helped
along the way toward a new grasp of what C. S. Lewis called "the
problem of pain" by the gift of meeting people whose stories I write. I
have the privilege to meet and talk to people who have lived through
much greater sorrows than I have been asked to bear, and who walk
through them with great grace and courage, because they have achieved
an understanding of the transforming power of pain that only comes from
walking through the fire.
People like Peggy and Wesley Bushnell, who
lost their only son Billy in combat in Iraq last spring. Knowing how
deeply my own two sons are woven into my heart, I asked them how they
bore this loss. They told me each of us has to decide if we believe
that God is in charge, and if He is, whether or not we believe He's a
God of love.
And if we do, we go from there, believing there is a
loving wisdom holding us up and helping us to bring some semblance of
sense into our sorrow.
I'm learning, by seeing it played out over
and over in flesh and blood, that Love can not only make pain bearable,
but by divine alchemy can change the pain — redeem it. Can blossom
through it, like a rose blooming in a heap of trash and shards of
broken glass. Can make it into something usable, something creative.
Love can transform pain into a catalyst for growth in a human soul that
can happen no other way.
I once read that pain is like a knife. What
kind of scars that knife makes on a human life depends upon whose hands
hold it. In the hands of a man made desperate by drugs or despair, a
knife can maim or even destroy a life. But in the hands of a skilled
surgeon, a sharp, sterile scalpel can cut away the malignant tumor
that's choking the life out of a loving mother, or repair a damaged
heart valve in a much-loved child.
Pain, if put into the hands of
Love Himself, can be redemptive. In fact, I believe there’s nothing
more redemptive in a human life than personal sorrow and pain and loss
and disappointment and illness and suffering can be, if offered into
the hands of Love.
I've seen it over and over again, and I know you
have, too. How the biggest heartbreak, the most heart-rending loss, the
most difficult struggle with disease or disability, can result in the
greatest growth as a person. People who have suffered the most have the
most compassion for others' suffering. Their hearts, having been
stretched on the rack of pain, are made larger. That's why it's been
said that those who have suffered most have most to give.
Thornton Wilder wrote, "In Love's service, only the wounded soldiers can serve."
The
way I see it, in this life's journey, we're all wounded soldiers. What
we do with our own personal allotment of pain is up to us. We can cling
to it, hoard it like a miser's coins, and let it warp us and make us
sour and bitter and self-pitying and crooked and small — or we can
offer it to the One who suffered for us — the One who is the embodiment
of Love — and let Him use it to make us kinder, more compassionate,
more giving, more tender-hearted.
To make us bigger people.


By Celia DeWoody
Copyright Harrison Daily Times, Inc. 2008

Happy Birthday to me!
I'm 52 today. It's been a nice birthday. Doyle took me out to a nice little Italian restaurant here on the Square last night for "our" birthday celebration, because his mother wanted to join us tonight when we went out to celebrate my birthday, and D said he wanted to take me out, just the two of us. The restaurant is in a building that was once a bank, and the hostess asked us if we'd like to sit in the vault! There's one table in an old vault, with thick brass doors wide open to the rest of the restaurant. It was kind of neat, sitting in the vault, eating dinner with my sweetheart, catching up after our respective long days at work.
Then this morning when I got to the newsroom, there was a funny card signed by all my colleagues, and lots of happy birthday wishes. I was the "editor of the day" and was on deadline this morning for today's paper (our deadline is noon, so we can't mess around in the mornings), and my cell phone kept ringing with sisters and my son in Colorado calling to wish me happy birthday.
Then a florist delivery person brought a beautiful vase of pink, cranberry and white flowers to me, and I opened the card, really wondering who it was from. And it was from my younger son, who left town last night to drive to Mississippi for several video-shooting gigs he'd lined up. The card was in his handwriting,with lots of loving wishes and sweet words to his mom. I can't tell you how much it touched me.
Then tonight, after a long day at work trying to finish a story for Monday's paper so I wouldn't have to work over the weekend, we picked up D's mom and took her out to a very crowded and noisy local steakhouse full of high school basketball tournament kids from all over the area. WHEW! We were glad to get home to peace and quiet - and a very needy Great Dane. :}
It's kind of sad, having the first birthday of my life without talking to either one of my parents on the phone, or having a card in the mail from them. But you know what? I KNOW they're thinking about me and loving me today.
God bless you all, my friends. Thanks for all of your encouragement, your prayers, and your friendship over the past year(s). You are very important to me.

Another Christmas Day has come, and as I write, is almost gone.
Our second Christmas in the Ozarks, a lovely, sunny blue day, the air crisp and tangy as cranberries.
A Christmas full of blessings, of intangible gifts.
On
Christmas Eve, our little family group gathered at our house for
supper. This year, it was just the four of us who live in Harrison —
Doyle and me, his mom Ruby — our only living parent — and my younger
son, the only one of our four children who able to join us, the others
many states away.

As we four celebrated together, we were each so
aware both of how happy we were to be well and here together, and also
of those we love who were far away in miles, but near in spirit. My
older son, spending his first Christmas in Colorado, and also his first
Christmas away from all of his family, snowed in all day alone in a
blizzard, but fine and warm and toasty and enjoying his two days off
work. Doyle's two children and their families — including our two
granddaughters — in the Sarasota area. Doyle's sister and her family in
cold Spokane. One of my sisters and her girls in the busy D.C. suburbs.
My two younger sisters and their families, also in sunny Sarasota. My
baby brother, who recently moved from Palm Tree Land to icy Chicago.
We talked to them on the phone, and thought about them all and missed them, but we felt them close to us.
We
also felt very near to our loved ones who have gone on before us,
especially to our parents — Doyle's father, who died in 2004. My daddy,
who died the day after New Year’s in 2005, and Mama, who flew away last
April. Although we missed them all, we also felt they were not far
away. With every day I live, the more real the afterlife becomes to me,
the thinner the veil seems between us and eternity. Maybe it's more
real because so many people I love are already there.
After dinner
on Christmas Eve, with the Christmas tree lights glowing and candles
flickering around the house, we visited, telling stories in
time-honored Southern fashion, and talking about days gone by.
A
special gift, my Protestant son went with me to Christmas Eve Mass at
11 p.m., which was a deep joy for me. A joy to be praying and singing
with others around the world, welcoming the newborn King, and a joy to
be kneeling beside my grown-up son.
We had a joy-filled and festive
Christmas Day, even though our family group was small. We did all the
usual things, with the day centered around cooking, opening presents,
and serving and eating a huge turkey dinner. Ruby walked Doyle through
making her special dressing, and it turned out great, even though we'd
forgotten to buy sage, a crucial ingredient. Our menu was a patchwork
quilt of families and friends and favorites … Ruby's cornbread dressing
and orange salad, a favorite from Doyle's childhood … scalloped
pineapple, one of my favorite Mississippi recipes … Doyle's yummy
homemade rolls ... and a pecan pie like Mama always made, using the
recipe on the Karo syrup bottle.
When we finally got the table
cleared and the good china and silver soaking in warm soapy water,
Doyle and Ruby and I piled in the car for our now-traditional Christmas
trek into the Ozark countryside. Last year we took her to the Buffalo
at Mt. Hersey, but yesterday, we drove down to Boxley Valley, hoping
the elk herd would be feeding. We were rewarded with a multitude of
elk, more than we've ever seen. One pasture would have a big herd,
heads down, grazing comfortably in the slanting gold light, and then
around the next curve, another pasture would be full. Even though they
seemed as tame as cows, it was still magical to see the dignified
creatures, feeding quietly in the valley with the blueing hills behind
them, lit up in the last rays of a setting Christmas sun.

Hey, friends,

Along with folks across America
(especially women!), I've been running here and there, buying stuff,
wrapping stuff, cooking stuff, decorating stuff, doing stuff! I just
got through making a batch of Chex Mix ( a tradition for about 20 years
that my son Jamie gets a "whole batch of Chex Mix all to himself" from
Santa Claus. Even though Jamie will be 27 next month, it's still a
tradition!) wrapping a bunch of gifts, and cleaning up a bunch of
wrapping mess.

I have to work tomorrow, as well
as the day after Christmas, but that's the daily newspaper business. We
put out a paper Monday through Friday, and every Sunday, all year. The
only three days a year we don't publish a paper are Christmas,
Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July. Which means, yes, we work New
Year's Ever AND New Year's Day! But, here's the great part...since
we're an afternoon daily, our deadline is noon, and the newsroom's part
is done. So tomorrow, I'm looking to be out the door for the day by 1.
I'm the "editor for the day" on the 26th, so I'll check the Associated
Press wire and try to stash a few things for Wednesday, since there
will probably be slim pickin's that morning after the holiday.

Doyle and I had a good day. We
went to 8:30 Mass together this morning, then to do a little Christmas
stocking shopping for his mom and then to the Dollar Tree to get
stocking stuffers for stockings we planned to do for our two little
girls across the street. We had so much fun picking out little fun
stuff for them ,and then delivering them later. They loved the light-up
batons; plastic recorders which they promptly started blowing; Silly
Putty; glitter glue; and a bunch of other stuff that kids like.

Little kids are so much fun! We
can't wait to see D's two little granddaughters- Morgan, 11, and
Maddie, 6 - when we go to Sarasota in January, and my little nephew
Ben, who'll be six in March.

We'll be a fairly small, but
merry group, here in the Ozarks for Christmas. Doyle, his mom Ruby, my
son Jamie and me. We'll have a Mexican Christmas Eve dinner tomorrow
night here, then I'll go to "midnight Mass" at 11 p.m., hopefully
accompanied by Doyle and maybe Jamie, too. Then Christmas morning,
Doyle and I will do some cooking early, then he'll go get Ruby from her
house and bring her over. When Jamie gets here, we'll open gifts, then
have Christmas dinner after noon. If the weather is pretty, we hope to
take Ruby out for a drive in the hills. Last year we took her down to
the Buffalo River at Mt. Hersey, which she loved.

Today, my sweetheart and I
loaded our big dog in the back seat and drove down to the Buffalo at
Pruitt, our closest access. We met a lovely Mexican family  here on
vacation from Houston and talked to them for a long time. They've never
been up here before, and of course were falling under the Ozarks spell
already.

Here's what the bluffs at Pruitt looked like about 4:30 this afternoon:

We're moving through the days leading up to Christmas,
the season many Christians around the world know as Advent — the four
weeks before Christmas when we prepare for the great feast day
celebrating the Incarnation of the Lord Jesus. The day the Creator
became a helpless newborn baby, for us.
“But the baby in her womb
He was the maker of the moon
He was the Author of the faith
That could make the mountains move.”  (from Andrew Peterson’s song, “Labor of Love.”)
Some
of us are moving together through the church services of the liturgical
season of Advent. And, depending on what church we go to, some of us
don't even know what Advent is.
We worship differently. Even among
Christians, we celebrate Christmas differently — or not at all —
according to what kind of church we belong to, or to our family or
national customs.
Just here at the Daily Times, a variety of
denominations are represented. One colleague told me of having lunch
with about a dozen others from the office, and they went around the
table giving their church affiliation. Every single one of them
belonged to a different kind of church.
It's the same in my own
extended family. On my dad's mother's side, everybody was a Roman
Catholic. My mother was a lifelong United Methodist, her family
Methodists for 150 years or more. One of my first cousins on that side
is a Presbyterian minister. Mama's little sister is an Independent
Presbyterian, and her older sister was an Independent Methodist.
My
husband was raised in the Disciples of Christ. His daddy grew up in the
Church of Christ, his mother in the Baptist Church, and his sister is a
Catholic convert.
One of my sons just joined the First Presbyterian
Church here in Harrison. On his daddy's side of the family are
Methodists, Church of Christ, Episcopalians, Presbyterians and Baptists.
Among
my circle of Christian friends are Methodists, Roman Catholics, many
different flavors of Baptists, Episcopalians, Mennonites,
Presbyterians, Assembly of God, Pentecostals, non-denominational
Protestants and a member of the Church of God Seventh Day. And then
there are those who tell me they don't believe in any type of organized
religion, but consider themselves just Christians.
You get the
idea. According to figures from Gordon-Conwell Seminary in 2006, there
are approximately 38,000 Christian denominations in the world today.
While
there is some degree of harmony between those of us who belong to
different branches of Christianity, sadly, there is also much
misunderstanding and conflict. It hurts my heart that among those of us
who call ourselves by the Name of Jesus, there is so much division and
misunderstanding and mistrust and rivalry and competition for members
and money and influence. That there is so little unity.
I'm just as
guilty of it as anyone. I confess that I have to struggle sometimes to
not have hard feelings against people who belong to churches who teach
their members that we Roman Catholics aren't "real" Christians, or that
we're all bound for Hell. I confess, there was a time in my own life,
in my fervent 20s, when I didn't think my Catholic relatives were
"saved," and tried to convert them to my own immature version of
evangelical Protestantism.
What I long for, and what I believe the
God we worship longs for, is a spirit of love and fellowship and unity
between Christians. If we believe what the Bible says, we're all
brothers and sisters, because we share the same Father, because we
share the Saviour.
We might differ on doctrine. You might believe in
immersion, while your neighbor's church sprinkles babies. One church
teaches "No doctrine but Christ," while my own has volumes of complex
doctrine that takes years and years of study to master. One church has
communion four times a year, and believes that communion is just a
symbolic re-enactment of the Last Supper. Mine offers Communion (or
what we call the "Eucharist,") daily, for those who want to receive
that gift, and teaches that the bread and wine are transformed into the
actual living Body and Blood of Christ, offered as spiritual food for
His people, to give us strength for our journey. (See John 10.)
Some of our differences are minor. Some, like the Communion issue, are fundamental.
But
here's the point. If we call ourselves by His Name, if we have His Holy
Spirit in our hearts, if Jesus is our Lord and our Saviour, then we
truly are members of the same family. A fragmented, dysfunctional,
quarreling family, true, but a family. And families love and support
each other.
I love a story I first read when I was teaching 11th
grade American history years ago, from a sermon preached by one of the
early American Protestant ministers during the Great Awakening. It goes
something like this:
A man died and went to the outskirts of Heaven,
standing down the hill from the Pearly Gates. He hollered up to St.
Peter, guarding the gates to Paradise, "Peter! Who's in there? Any
Methodists inside those gates?"
St. Peter’s answer came back, surprisingly, "No Methodists!"
"Any Baptists?"
"No Baptists?"
"Any Catholics?"
"No Catholics!"
"Any Presbyterians?"
"No Presbyterians!"
"Well then, who IS in Heaven?"
"Only sinners, saved by the Blood of the Lamb!"
This
Christmas, I challenge myself, and our readers, to pray for, and try to
practice more unity within our Christian family as we turn our hearts
and our minds toward Bethlehem, where Maker of the Moon was born to a
virginal girl in a dirty, dark barn.
"To an open house in the evening,
Home shall men come,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are.
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home."
(G. K. Chesterton, from "The House of Christmas")

(Drawing by my son Alex when he was in high school.)

As I write Tuesday night, I’ve just gotten home after receiving the
sacrament of Confession at Mary Mother of God, where more than 100
people stood in lines for up to an hour to help prepare our hearts for
the Christmas season. And as I sit down after 9 to finally write this
column, I have to start with a confession to you all.
If you've been
reading this column, you might remember that last year before Christmas
I wrote about our storage building being broken into in December of
2005, when we were just moving to town, and almost all of my family
antiques being stolen. I also told you that my beloved Santa Claus
collection was missing, as well as the bin holding my lifetime's
collection of Christmas tree ornaments.
My heart was so touched by
the outpouring of love from friends after that column was published. A
dear older couple from my church gave me some of their Christmas
decorations. A new friend, Susie Harper, who since last Christmas has
left us for Heaven, gave me a bag full of beautiful ornaments,  as well
as a warm note of welcome and kindness that I'll always treasure; my
mother, who was in rapidly failing health, asked my little sister to
pack up some of her Christmas decorations to send me; and my sister
mailed me an elegant new ornament. And maybe the most touching of all,
my dear friend Janet in Ozark County, Mo., sent me a package with 11
handmade wooden angels that she had collected over the years, with
another loving note that I will always keep.
Here's the
confession: After all this happened last December, we found in the
attic, where we'd stashed a bunch of boxes after the move, a box marked
"Stockings and Christmas tree ornaments." Excited, I opened it...and
under the stockings found the Christmas tree ornaments I thought had
been stolen! I was overjoyed, but I also felt bad that these kind
people had given me ornaments thinking mine were gone forever.
So that's my confession. I kind of feel like an ornament-rich fraud.
Last
Saturday, Doyle and I went to the Omaha Christmas tree farm and picked
out the most beautiful tree of our lives. On Sunday night, with carols
playing, a cinnamon candle burning,  lights turned low and Christmas
tree lights twinkling,  I hung the ornaments, the old ones and the new
ones, my heart full of tender memories.
 A fuzzy yellow Woodstock
ornament that Jamie picked out for me and paid for when he was six. A
blizzard of white snowflakes that my mother-in-law Ruby crocheted. The
counted-cross-stitch ornament my cousin made 28 years ago for Alex'
first Christmas. A sequined drum made by my grandmother Poppy. A
blown-glass red pepper I bought in Albuquerque on a trip to see my baby
sister in 1989.
A pink flamingo to remind us of Sarasota, where
Doyle and I met and married, and where a majority of our dearest ones
still live. A little pizza made of flour-and-salt dough that Alex made
when he was  eight. A tiny handmade basket Doyle and I bought on my
first trip to Mountain View. A family of Dickens-era dolls given to me
by dear old friends back home.
 Two little-boy hands cut out of red
felt, one with a blurred picture of Alex at five, one with "Jamie"
written in green glitter. A purple rhinoceros earring that belonged to
my Grandmarie, my Gulfport grandmother who loved gaudy earrings. An
embroidered baby reindeer my sister Cissy made me in 1980, and a tiny
beaded stocking she stitched for Mama. A reindeer cut-out that Melanie,
one of my students, gave me, with a sweet note written on it in gold
paint.  A miniature airplane that reminds me of my Daddy. A carved
pelican from Pauley's Island, bought as a memento of the only Taylor
family vacation we ever took after all of us grew up. A tiny train
bought to remind us of the Amtrack trip my little boys and I took from
Meridian, Miss., to Washington with dear friends. Still waiting to be
hung are the sweet angels, which will each be inscribed with the name
of a loved one who's already crossed the River.
Different colors,
different shapes, some old and faded, some fresh and shiny-new, some
handmade, some bought in an expensive shop.
 As Doyle and I share
this third Christmas as man and wife, my 51st Christmas, my first
Christmas without my Mama — I'm thankful for each one of the people,
and their friendship and love that these ornaments represent. Like my
life — and, I imagine, yours — our Christmas tree is decorated with
love from old friends and new ones, from dear ones who've already flown
away, and from those whose lives still touch ours every day.

Published Dec. 5, 2007
Copyright Harrison Daily Times

See The Great Christmas Tree Hunt in the slideshow, top right....
See who has been helping us put the lights on the Christmas tree below...

Shirley Larson
works at night at the Boone County Courthouse. For 21 years, she’s been
coming in after everybody else has gone, mopping, dusting, cleaning the
bathrooms, in the big empty building.
Yesterday, Shirley told me a story about the Christmas spirit.
"They
were having a singing over at the Lyric last night," she said. "I stood
out there and listened for a while, then I went on to open the
courthouse door, and there was a big, burly guy who passed me outside
the door. He kept saying, 'The courthouse is closed.'
Shirley agreed
with the man, whom she'd never seen before, that the courthouse was
closed. She said she didn't tell him that she worked there.
She noticed that a cigarette lighter had been stuck in the courthouse doorway, keeping the door from shutting all the way.
"What's this lighter doing here?" she asked.
"So I can get in," the man said. Shirley wondered why the man needed to get in, but didn't say anything.
"I
shut the door to make sure it was locked," Shirley said. "Then I took
my key and unlocked the door and went in.” A few minutes later, she
noticed the lighter was in the door again.

Shirley went ahead and
got to work cleaning. "I was up on the third floor, you know, where the
judge's offices are, and I heard 'Click — click — click.' I thought,
that guy is back in here. Shouldn't nobody have been in there but me."
She
took some trash down into the boiler room, and saw a sleeping bag and a
suitcase, and then saw the strange man sitting in a nearby room. I
said, "Does Judge Moore know you're here?" She said the man never
really turned around and looked at her, and didn't answer.
Worried,
Shirley climbed up the stairs to the third floor to Boone County Judge
Mike Moore's office and called the judge's secretary, Teri Garrett, and
told her about the man in the courthouse basement. Teri told her that
she had heard the man had been sleeping in the gazebo on the court
park, and that some of the courthouse employees had been letting him
come into the courthouse and warm up.
Teri said she'd call the Mike Moore and tell him.
"But
Teri, it's cold out!" Shirley said, worried about what would happen to
the man if he wasn't allowed to spend the night in the courthouse. She
said years ago, another man had sneaked into the courthouse to sleep on
a cold night, and one of the judges made him leave. She felt terrible
when she found out later that the man had almost frozen to death that
night.
Shirley has a kind heart. She's raising six of her
grandchildren on a tight budget, but she likes to help others. She told
me that there was once a man around town who had some mental problems,
and she worried about him being hungry sometimes. She told me she’d
give money to the folks at the Townhouse, and send the man over to the
café to get a hamburger.
“Then I'd know at least he'd had a hamburger to eat," she said.
Monday
night, with the temperature expected to dip below freezing,
tender-hearted Shirley was worried the courthouse visitor. She didn't
have to worry long.
After Shirley told me the rest of her story, I called Judge Mike Moore and asked him about it.
"The guy was obviously without a place to stay," Mike told me.
The
judge said after Teri called him and told him about the stranger in the
courthouse, he called Sheriff Danny Hickman and asked him to check on
the man and tell him he couldn't spend the night in the courthouse.
"I
asked Danny to take him to (a local motel). I told him to tell the
people I'd be up there later to pay for his room," Mike said.
The judge went to the motel and talked to the stranger, who appeared to be in his 60s.
"He
had run out of money," he said. "He said he was from Fayetteville, but
he wanted to stay here. He was supposed to be getting some kind of
check in a few days."
Mike said he talked to the motel managers, who kindly gave him a reduced rate.
 "I
paid for him to stay until Saturday," Mike said. "I did what anybody
would do when it was 20 degrees out and somebody needed a place to stay
warm. I couldn't just put him out in the cold."
Shirley told me she
was so relieved — and touched — when Teri told her that our county
judge had arranged for the stranger to have a place to stay.
"This
man doesn't just talk it — he walks it," she said, her voice trembling
with emotion. "I'm so proud of Mike Moore. If I had the money, I'd pay
him back. He got that man a good bed, and he's going to be warm. I hope
the man understands that the good Lord takes care of us."
The stranger told Mike he was planning to make Harrison his home.
He
picked a good place for a home. If you've lived here your whole life,
you may not realize that every place is not like our little town, our
county, our Ozarks —  full of people who take the Good Book to heart.
Like Shirley Larson and Mike Moore. People who don't just talk about
their faith, but walk it.