And now for something completely different

Carol said my last blog was heavy. Mind you, preaching God’s word is heavy!
But, in contrast, have a squint at our 2007 Christmas letter. Since 1975 I have charted annual news of the Quickes for long-suffering friends. As an antidote to those letters which recite lists of triumphs, ours always focus on mishaps. Reading about others’ misfortunes is much more interesting!

As this wends its December way to our friends over many years, please take our greeting to heart and….maybe, (only maybe), smile at the first paragraph:

Our dear friend(s)
A very Merry Christmas to you with its groundbreaking good news: Today a Saviour (Eng.!) has been born to you – he is Christ the Lord. We hope and pray this will be a great season for you with Him, with a glorious 2008 ahead.

Occasionally we have surprised friends by our own good news, but more often it has been a gnashing of teeth kind. Actually, 2007 has seen some fair grinding of molars. Some disasters dominate. The first was caused by a moment of sheer gymnastic lunacy. On Friday 13th April (why does that date matter?) I flew into Heathrow to speak at a preacher’s congress, at my former church in Cambridge. Having dozed for seven hours, I leapt up athletically in the aisle, stretched and bent my knees, only to find one knee failed to retract, staying at a rakish, Picasso-cubistic angle. Crawling on one good knee nearly two miles to reclaim baggage, while trying not to hurt small children by my wildly swinging right knee, was frankly brutal. (And worse, twice I was nearly run over by beeping carts carrying people with apparently perfectly good knees. Why didn’t I get on one, I hear you (Carol) say? Well, possibly it’s a male thing!) The saga reeks of stoicism (even to read). Scans back in the US showed a severe meniscus tear, with surgery eventually on November 2nd. My surgeon brought in friends and even the family cat to marvel at the photographs, as he claimed (unnecessarily loudly I thought) that it was the worst meniscus injury he had ever operated on. “I don’t know how you have been able to walk for the last five months,” said he. Actually, I had wondered myself.

There’s more… but we spare you! Blessings for this Advent Season and Christmas ahead.