Something About The Joy

Two of my favorite bloggers often do posts where they simply share links to other interesting sites or useful information they've run across.   I thought I'd do that on this quiet Christmas Eve, before I tackle one last bout of Christmas baking to get the shortbread in the oven. So here are my top five "Picks" for Christmas: 1. About.com . A great resource for information on just about everything, and   Matt Rosenberg's geography newsletter is full of interesting little known facts about the world.   Today he gives us a history of Christmas, covering the Christian story accurately and explaining how it merged with, and eventually displaced, certain pagan practices in Europe.   Check it out at: http://geography.about.com/od/culturalgeography/a/The-Geography-Of-Christmas.htm 2.   Breakpoint .   Chuck Colson is in heaven this Christmas, celebrating the glorious event firsthand, but, thanks to technology, we can still read what he w...

December 21, 2012.    A significant day for me.   If he were still alive, my father would be 100 years old today.   And tomorrow marks the 59th anniversary of his death. From the beginning I planned to dedicate Zinovy’s Journey to my father, if only as a way to preserve his name.   Walter Fred Saumert.   The only son of the only Saumert living in the western hemisphere.   My father had only daughters.   When we married, and our mother died, the name died as well, so I preserved it on the dedication page of my book.   The name is worth preserving. I have only a few memories of my father, but they are vivid.   They’ve grown more vivid over the years, the details being absorbed, and gloriously transformed, I’m sure, from the jumble of vague impressions left in my childish heart the day he died. I remember that day well.   I remember sitting with my sister and a babysitting neighbor in the car ...