We've read all our prisoners' texts for the semester. On Thursday, I am going to ask my class which of these prisoners they'd like to share a cell with if they happened to be in prison. I know my answer to that question: Dietrich Bonhoeffer. It's his book of advent devotions to which I've turned this season, recognizing the letter to his parents in it as from his Letters and Papers from Prison. Today's commentary on Luke 1, 46-55 seems particularly appropriate to my own circumstances and those of my immediate family. But it may be for you as well, and so I copy it here (from The Mystery of Holy Night edited by Manfred Weber and published by The Crossroad Publishing Company, New York, date??)

Celebrating Advent Means Knowing How to Wait

Mary, grasped and seized by the Spirit,
speaks of God's coming into the world,
of the advent of Jesus Christ.
For she knows better than anyone what it means
to wait for Christ.
She waits for him in a way unlike anyone else.
She awaits him as his mother.
She knows about the mystery of his coming,
about the Spirit that is at play here,
about the almighty God who works his wonders.
She expereiences in her own body
that God's ways with humans are wonderful,
that he isn't bound by human standards,
that he dosn't follow the path
that humans like to lay out for him--
that his way is beyond all understanindg,
beyond all proof,
free, and with a mind of its own.

As a person who often feels compelled to lay out paths for others (even him), I need to hear this word about waiting tonight.

Two Blasts

Two blasts during our Pennsylvania Thanksgiving. One meteorological and one nostalgic. I'm so glad that Ellen decided to leave Chapel Hill before, not after, her Czech class last Wednesday and that she found a shortcut through WV (which we advised her not to take based on our old map, but she persisted and asked the locals at a rest stop who said everyone takes the four lane access road from Beckley to Morgantown, not the expressway that takes the two legs of the triangle via Charleston) which cut off an hour from her trip. That way she got to Jenny's before the winter storm, which evidently was bad in Ohio too--we got out before it hit as well. The storm necessitated our buying two new car windshield scrapers, one for the NC car that didn't have one and one to replace the tired old one that had done us good service for years but snapped in two in protest of yet another winter.

The second was C's gift for the weekend--a DVD of the first season of "Lois and Clark," the girls' once-a-week TV show during their Oberlin days. There's no accounting for tastes, but it sure was/is better than most of the fare on TV these days when students seem to watch non-stop :):) Karen likes it too--to my utter surprise, knew exactly what it was when the theme music played for the first episode, so the various hour long (minus the ads :)) shows punctuated the work that otherwise dominated the weekend. Jenny was preparing her last week of the semester lectures and getting two (first time ever) final exams ready. Ellen was wrapping her mind around the notion of "meta-data" for a class presentation Tuesday. C. had her Christmas cards, as she does every Thanksgiving, plus some computer work, Chuck was grading linear algebra proofs, and I was getting an important end of the semester class ready on definitions of freedom. I was doing some mind-bending work as well, trying to understand philosophers' takes on positive and negative freedoms. Karen had her gameboy, and at one point there were five of us lined up behind screens of some sort and one person left to take the telltale picture.

On our way out the door yesterday, we helped Jenny decorate her new apartment for Advent and Christmas. As she said, if we didn't do it then, it wouldn't get done in the overwhelming days ahead, and if it didn't get done, it would be depressing. She is inviting her advanced quantum class for dinner on Thursday and wanted her nice new place to look Christmas-y. It does.

Drive Up Pies

Is Wooster the only city in America that has not only drive up banks and drive up fast food but drive up pies? I gave up baking pies quite a few years ago, it not being one of my strengths, for sure, when we tasted Troyer pies. Troyer bakeries are Amish or Mennonite owned. In Wooster, they bake pies by the thousands for Thanksgiving. I ordered mine last Friday and today, before we took off for PA (forgetting our blowup mattress bed, by the way -- sigh), we waited in line at the drive up window. Having paid on Friday, all we had to do was say, "Hampton, three pies" and the cheerful lady handed them out of the window to us. Apple, pumpkin and pecan. Ummmm.

Over the River and Through the Woods....

...to Jenny's' house we'll go. And we may even have jingle the sleigh bells because it's snowing tonight. Breaking our longstanding tradition of gathering daughters and friends and students (and last year even a grandpa) here in Wooster, we are taking Thanksgiving on the road this year. The last year not in Wooster was ten years ago when we met Chuck's brother and family at their parents' home after his mom's death. We sorted and cleaned (but not cleaned out--the house is still being used with that same furniture ten years later) and raked mountains of leaves, which by ordinance we could burn. (Unlike here where our own newly raked leaves are waiting under their blanket of snow to be sucked up by the city's huge vacuum cleaner.)

We are gathering in PA for a couple of reasons. Primary is that J's dear friend C, who has attended most of the Thanksgivings of the last 13 years, is miserably allergic to our cat. So when we realized we could gather half an hour from C's home in Pittsburgh, minus the cat, it seemed somehow right. Plus it makes it easier for Ellen to meet us and it gives us a chance to show Karen where Jenny lives. She has enough bedding space for us all. We're bringing most of the feast, so when I got home from work a little early this afternoon, I started baking. Made the soup and sweet breads for tomorrow night (also traditional) and some of the fixings for the big meal. Karen doesn't know it but by magic an extra TV will appear in one of J's bedrooms, so that we can have a choice of TV fare. What if someone likes neither footbal nor Nickelodean, you ask? I take the fifth. That TV will then become her Christmas present. How will two sometimes-at-odds roommates manage two TVs in one tiny room, filled to the brim with the "treasures" of two packrats??? The roommate has had one all along that she often doesn't share and often watches scary things that K hates. Finally, we decided to solve the brewing problem by getting a small one for Karen with a set of headphones. How this solution works out remains to be seen, but it is more fair.

Returning to the Thanksgiving theme--what I will miss the most by the change in venue (though I am the one who suggested it) is our international student guests. Maybe Christmas Eve for those who haven't been able to go home.

P.S, Reuben, I made your salad. It wouldn't be Thanksgiving without it.

Two down, four to go

On the list of Hampton-anticipated babies this season are an addition to our "honorary grandson," Andrew's family and one each to all of our five married nieces and nephews. So far we have welcomed Meghan Elizabeth (who belongs to Andrew and his mom and dad, Beth and Mark) and Mason James, Reuben and Tina's third son (Lucas and Callum) and who may win the prize for being the biggest baby of the lot (though that remains to be seen), weighing in at 10 and a half pounds. I wish we could give them all hugs, but for now we have to content ourselves with the less than satisfactory virtual kind.

On the Downward Slide to Advent

I've always called Northview CMA's missions conference the highlight of our liturgical year as a sort of joke because of course most people in the church would sniff at the idea of liturgy yet they want things done the same way, especially when it comes to the revered (and necessary) missions conference. It was no different this year as the committee, which I chair, received lots of pre-conference negative comments as the folks ancitipated (rightly) some changes this year. Nevertheless, the week was a rich one of interaction and challenge (and work for the committee--I'm still tired--that will probaby just carry over to Thanksgiving). People even liked the food that they thought they couldn't make for the international dinner because they couldn't pronounce the names of the recipes (we had five continental/area "stations" fully decorated (thanks, Lucy!!) and only food from that place allowed on that table--this was one of the "huge" changes this year) and some asked for the recipes. A few folk are getting the idea that they can bring non-churched friends to the dinner for the food, fellowship, and pre-evangelistic challenge. Julie told stories from her times in China that kept us all in stitches and then ended with a poignant story about God bringing her and a seeker together in a karyoke (sp?) bar that she did NOT want to go to a full six hours from where they both lived (it turned out their apartments were only an easy bike ride apart). We even reinstituted the traditional parade of the nations (although only in miniature), complete with costumes and banners, which ought to satisfy the congregation's soul-longing for liturgy.

Now it's on to Thanksgiving, to be held at Jenny's new apartment this year--the first time in ten years that we will not gather family and their friends and students in Wooster--talk about traditions!--and Advent.

Big Production, Big Smells, Big Week, Big Task--All Good

Last night Chuck and I went to a COW student musical theater production. At a small college, it is sometimes chancy that there'd be enough singing/dancing talent in addition to acting, but this "Once Upon an Island" was most excellent. The lead, DM, is part of WCF when she has the time (not this semester!). It's a retelling of the Little Mermaid story with a Haitian setting and themes of race and class complicating it all. Big Production--great! This afternoon I got to the other major domestic task of the fall, that of making applesauce. Wonderful odors permeated the house. I dread doing it but once the production line gets set it, it's not that bad, and since I won't buy the applesauce in the store, this is the only way we enjoy it. Too bad I don't have a big freezer, but we're not investing in one at this stage of the game. Tonight also I started cooking for the BIG WEEK, the missions conference. We will be at church every night we can ('cause I'm in charge a couple of nights, a panel discussion with folks from the congregation and one of our missionaries on how to form redemptive relationships, and then the big "round the world kids'" night). The week culminates in an international dinner to which many international students at the college are invited. Julie, our IV staff member, will give a pre-evangelism talk about her time in China. We are having a hard time coaxing people to cook what they can't pronounce, so I took a couple of the Middle Eastern specialities and began that cooking tonight. The Big Task is to cut and modify my Salman Rushdie Satanic Verses review published in Pro Rege this summer into a 20 minute talk that hopefully will be accepted for Calvin's Festival of Faith & Writing next April. One of their talk categories is "Inter-Faith Dialogue"--probably because Salman Rushdie himself is going to be the featured speaker, so I called to see if I could submit a version of my review as Rushdie's failed dialogue between secular-Muslim-humanism and fundamentalist Islam as well as an opportunity for Christians to dialogue with Muslim friends through a careful reading of this important text. All by December 1 with the Missions Conference and Thanksgiving between now and then. Like I said--Big but Good.