Winter

Well, we've had some key events: Carolyn marked the big Five O, Michael and Jack's Coming Home Day, and the annual L'Abri Conference in Rochester MN.
Since Francis Schaeffer's lymphoma treatment at the Mayo Clinic in the early '80s, L'Abri established an office and residential work in Rochester - about 90 minutes southeast of Minneapolis/St Paul, that has grown due to conferences, medical ethics seminars, and a community (PCA, et al) surrounding the branch.

My college apartment mate practices psychiatry there, so we visit while the boys experience arctic weather:
Michael woke-up early to make ice candles. He LOVES snow and would throw himself onto mounds of it, always game for someone to engage in a snowball fight. Jack had an early bad experience with wet socks and refused to go out afterwards!

I gave two workshops:

"Homesick for a Place You've Never Known:
The Orphans of God and Spiritual Adoption"

"Images as the New Opium of the People"

also bringing 5 Pepperdine students. I made use of a MadMen clip, illustrating competing notions of nostalgia and homeland at work in modern culture, in stark contrast to Biblical linearity best represented, perhaps, by Abraham, who never looked back.

As stark contrast, Ozu faces crises non-nostalgically - war, dissolution of the family, modernity are faced head-on, without melancholy. Extended family photographs are taken in his films, but never viewed:

The house - its emptiness - is an actor in the family drama.

Wim Rietkerk, of the Dutch L'Abri gave a closing talk contrasting Reformed and Puritan conceptions of spirituality - sojourn vs pilgrimage - and Dick Keyes' tweaked the Tulip by preferring "Pervasive" over "Total Depravity."

The conference dovetailed with Valentine's Day, Michael's "Coming Home Day" 7 years ago; we celebrated Jack's, as well.



For us, this has largely meant - along with Chinese New Year's - eating a variety of our favorite take out dishes.
Carolyn involved the Beacon Hill children in a dragon puppet craft, then broke out fortune cookies.

Jack's coming home was met with considerably less fanfare - we just came home; only now working to correct the deficit in our rituals of the event.

Carolyn turned 50! We had a number of small events; David and Teresa threw a party after church. and Susan came over on the actual day for cake and presents. Then old college friend, Beth, flew into town a couple weeks later for her 50th and we held a joint celebration, going to Ojai for the weekend.