Not Your Ordinary Christmas Newsletter

Our safe haven at Hawthorne Circle.

And in despair I bowed my head

"There is no peace on Earth," I said

For hate is strong and mocks the song

Of peace on Earth, good will to men

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

December 25, 1863

It's time to write the customary Christmas letter, sharing things like our experience of loss over my sister Maggie's death, about two of our grandchildren now being in college, about some of our normal(?) health challenges, about our gratitude for having our whole family together this week, about my plans to retire in March, etc.

But with all of that being said, I've felt led to focus on something else Alma Jean and I know is weighing on all of you--the woeful lack of peace on earth and on the need for us all to pray for that to come to pass.

Longfellow wrote "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" a month after his oldest son Charley was seriously wounded in one of the lesser known Civil War battles near Orange, Virginia. Here in the Valley, unlike so many places in the world, our seemingly safe community hasn't experienced any war of that kind since General Sheridan terrorized the population by ordering fires set to hundreds of mills and barns up and down the Shenandoah Valley in 1864, nearly 160 years ago. But while there were still deadly battles being fought that resulted in the brutal killing of Union and Confederate soldiers the remainder of that year, most homes, schools, churches, and whole towns and villages of civilians survived, and many pre-Civil War buildings and other infrastructure remain today.

Today's wars are unimaginably more destructive, with densely populated Gaza being pounded with a daily barrage of exceptionally large 1000 to 2000 pound bombs in areas with dense civilian populations. According to US intelligence estimates Israel has dropped more than 29,000 of these since the onslaught began, with 40-45% of them being unguided. This is equivalent to the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of WWII. Twice as many civilians, some 20,000, have been killed in Gaza in less than two months than in the Russian invasion of Ukraine in over two years, with nearly half of these being under the age of 18, as compared to just under 600 children killed so far in Ukraine. 

Then there are other terrible conflicts going on in Sudan, Syria, Yemen and in other hurting parts of the world.

But why bring this up in a family letter at Christmas?

• Because the Christians, Jews, Muslims and other men, women and children who live in places like Gaza, one sixth the size of Rockingham County, are a part of God's family, neighbors we are to love as we love ourselves.

• Because the announcement of good news of peace on earth that once came to shepherds--just 40 miles from Gaza--is too important to keep to ourselves. 

• Because the terrible suffering and death caused by the world's current wars make this one of the most urgent moral issues of our time. 

• Because our faith tells us to keep proclaiming peace on earth, salvation and shalom to all people everywhere, now and throughout the New Year.

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep

God is not dead, nor doth He sleep

The wrong shall fail, the right prevail

With peace on earth, goodwill to men

Love, prayers and blessings,

Harvey and Alma Jean