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A Blog of the C.S. Lewis Foundation |
Merry Christmas!
As we come to the close of a very full and fruitful year of ministry, we are deeply grateful for the faithful prayer and support of friends like you.
Our best wishes to you and yours this Christmas season and throughout the New Year.
The staff of the C.S. Lewis Foundation
The trailer for next year’s film The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey just debuted. Based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s book The Hobbit, the first of the two films will be released in theatres on December 14, 2012. The second film, The Hobbit: There and Back Again, will be released the following year on December 13, 2013.
So are you as excited to see it as I am?
Steve Elmore
Director of Communications
C.S. Lewis Foundation
Dear Friends:
This is how Jesus the Messiah was born. His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. But before the marriage took place, while she was still a virgin, she became pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit. Joseph, her fiancé, was a good man and did not want to disgrace her publicly, so he decided to break the engagement quietly.
As he considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. “Joseph, son of David,” the angel said, “do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. For the child within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit. And she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
All of this occurred to fulfill the Lord’s message through his prophet:
“Look! The virgin will conceive a child!
She will give birth to a son,
and they will call him Immanuel,
which means ‘God is with us.’”
.
When Joseph woke up, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded and took Mary as his wife. But he did not have marital relations with her until her son was born. And Joseph named him Jesus.
(Matthew 1:18-25, NLT)
There isn’t one of us who hasn’t been challenged in our relationships and our work, in our recreation and our spiritual life in knowing the right thing to do. Ever since Eve and Adam chose the knowledge of good and evil for themselves over a relationship of grace with God, we humans have agonized and obsessed over making the correct decision and taking the appropriate action in the situations in which we find ourselves. Read more
Dear Friends:
The decorations for the Christmas breakfast for clients and colleagues were wonderful. Patricia carefully planned the centerpieces with angels and holly illumined by white tapered candles. On the top of the piano she arranged a miniature forest of red and green wooden trees interspersed with small candles in star-shaped holders.
On the morning of the breakfast, my colleague Kerry began to light the table candles. He did this quickly and efficiently. I tried to help but literally tore up one box of matches before getting started.
Finally, I struck a match on the side of a new box and it flamed up nicely. I touched it to the wick of one of the candles on the piano. It proved tough to ignite, but I persisted. When I succeeded, I moved on to the next one and on down the row.
Karen, the soloist for the morning and her husband, Ed, were admiring the decorations. “Those little candles are nice,” Ed said to me. “Karen has some like those, only they are battery-powered aren’t they?”
“Yes, they are,” Karen said.
“I guess Patricia went with the real deal,” I replied, intent on my lighting duties.
“Whoa,” Ed exclaimed suddenly. I looked back to see the first candle I lit flaring up spectacularly. The next one burst into flames too. Ed started snuffing them out and others came to the rescue. The smell of burning plastic wafted through the air.
Turning over one of the smoldering globs, I discovered the stunning truth. I had just done my part for Christmas cheer by setting fire to six battery-powered candles that now resembled marshmallows toasted by an over-eager camper. Read more
Dear Friends:
The chill betrayed the bright sunshine when hurricane-strength Santa Ana winds blew on the last day of November. High on the roof of the School of Dentistry building, a hungry red-tailed hawk perched, hunched down against the gusts and waited for lunch.
I have often heard that hawk’s distinctive “kree-eee-ar” cry and have looked up to see it circling over the Medical Center where pigeons roost on the roof between helicopter landings and takeoffs. I imagine it screamed on this day too when it spied a pigeon making its way in short flights along the north side of the Coleman Pavilion seeking shelter against the blasting winds. No one would have heard it over the roar.
The angle of attack was short and steep. The hawk accelerated its dive to strike the pigeon before it reached the end of the building and could take shelter under the cars in the parking lot beyond.
Working in his second-floor office, my friend, Dr. Richard Peverini, heard the slam against his window. Startled he looked up to see a streak of white pigeon feathers and avian body fluids across the glass. He looked down and saw two birds lying on the sidewalk below. The fierce hawk was dead, lying on its back with talons still extended, highlights of bronze and red glinting in the sun as the wind ruffled its plumage. The hapless gray and white pigeon lay crumpled and still beside it.
The hawk may have misjudged the strength of the once-in-a-generation windstorm in the passage between the buildings and was vulnerable to it with wings folded in the streamlined dive.
More likely, the raptor saw the sunlight streaming through the windows of Richard’s corner office illuminating the landscape on the other side of the building and thought open-space would allow it to safely pull out of its dive with its prey in grasp. Instead the impact of the hurtling strike against the unforgiving surface of the glass was so violent that the soft body of the pigeon splattered rather than cushion the body of the hawk against death. Read more
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