No Week-in-Review this week. May this quotation from Living the Christian Year help put your Christmas in proper perspective.
So in this season we come once more to Bethlehem in the poverty of the shepherds and humility of the Magi. We bow before the feedbox which holds the Bread of Life, the gift by which we’re enriched. We find our words, even our poetry, failing us, as Dietrich Bonheoffer so eloquently discerned:
“Our words rush out at the sight of the divine child; we try to put into language what is implied in the name: Jesus. But at the bottom these words are nothing except a worldless silence of adoration before the ineffable, before the presence of God in the shape of a human child.” — Bobby Gross, Living the Christian Year: Time to Inhabit the Story of God, InterVarsity Press, 2009, p.74.
Tom enjoys daily conversations regarding living out the Biblical Story with his wife Theresa and their four girls, around the block, at Elizabethtown Brethren in Christ Church (where he teaches adult electives and co-leads a small group), among healthcare professionals as the Northeast Regional Director for the Christian Medical & Dental Associations (CMDA), and in higher ed as a volunteer with the Emerging Scholars Network (ESN). For a number of years, the Christian Medical Society / CMDA at Penn State College of Medicine was the hub of his ministry with CMDA. Note: Tom served with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship / USA for 20+ years, including 6+ years as the Associate Director of ESN. He has written for the ESN blog from its launch in August 2008. He has studied Biology (B.S.), Higher Education (M.A.), Spiritual Direction (Certificate), Spiritual Formation (M.A.R.), Ministry to Emerging Generations (D.Min.). To God be the glory!