12.24.2009

Christmas Eve

Great indeed, we confess,
is the mystery of godliness:

God was manifest in the flesh,

justified in the Spirit,
seen of angels,
preached unto the Gentiles,
believed on in the world,
received up into glory.
I Timothy 3:16

Have a JOY-filled Christmas.

12.23.2009

Behold the Lamb of God

Here's what I would do, if I were you.  I would take about 30 minutes on Christmas Eve, grab a mug of hot cocoa, curl up, and listen to this.

In fact, I'll be doing it even though I'm not you.

It's a song cycle written by Andrew Peterson, and Christmas is at its heart. Take another look at "the Christmas story" you thought you knew so well.

God bless your quiet reflection on the old, old story of Redemption.  May it never lose its luster to you.

12.22.2009

Eye Candy...er, Cookies


There's nothing that says Merry Christmas like a Snellen Chart cookie. (That's a little optical industry humor. I can do that now that I'm an honest-to-goodness certified optician--woot!--see previous post.)

I broke out the cookie cutters and lard earlier this week and whipped up a big batch of cookies for a cookie exchange and a few gifts. The eye chart was for my boss. He's an optometrist, in case that's not obvious. In fact, that's him in the upper left corner. The resemblance is pretty remarkable if I do say so myself. But then I have an eye for that sort of thing (more optical humor).

12.21.2009

I PASSED!

A big thank you to all of you who prayed for me to pass the American Board of Opticianry National Opticianry Competency Examination!  Just a few minutes ago I found out I passed.  Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

12.19.2009

Wallenberg: Missing Hero

I am not in the habit of writing letters willy-nilly to foreign heads of state.

However, I just sent an e-mail to Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister of Russia.  It was mostly copied-and-pasted from a suggested letter I found online.  It begins:

Dear President,
It has been sixty years since Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who saved tens of thousands during World War II was captured by the Soviet army. His fate is still unknown. One thing is certain - he is still in your country.

To my shame, a few weeks ago, I didn't know the name Raoul Wallenberg.  Reading his biography by Kati Marton changed that forever.  Upon completing the book last night, I felt compelled to do something--hence the note addressed to the Kremlin.

Raoul Wallenberg led a fascinating life.  The son of Sweden's equivalent of the Rockefellers, he studied in America, travelled the world--and then found his calling as savior of the beleaguered Jews of Budapest.  Commissioned by neutral Sweden and the U.S., he moved to Hungary's capital city near the end of World War II, and began the seemingly-impossible task of pulling Jewish men, women, and children from the deadly jaws of Adolf Eichmann and the Third Reich.  He came up with a brilliant system of issuing Swedish "passports" to thousands of Budapest Jews.  They were essentially worthless, but he and his staff distributed them with such bold confidence that the occupying Nazis were set back on their heels in confused hesitation.  Thus he bought precious time as the Jews waited for the Allied liberation of their city.

Whenever a pogrom was organized, whenever another batch of starving Jews were rounded up for a march to the labor camps, whenever they were lined up along the Danube to be shot and drowned, the Swede would show up.  In his politely firm and quietly confident manner, he would elbow past the Nazi soldiers and announce, "I am Wallenberg."  And a ripple of hope would move through the masses of slump-shouldered people with ragged stars of David sewn to their thin coats.  Many of them would get to go home that night, clutching their "passports".  One more hellish day had been survived, thanks to Wallenberg.

There were assassination attempts, there were threatening letters from Nazi officials, there were exhausting weeks and months on end with little sleep.  Perhaps worst of all there was the constant knowledge that he couldn't possibly save everyone that needed him.  But Wallenberg never seemed to waver.  While much of the world turned a blind eye to Hitler's atrocities, Wallenberg did something about it.

Yes, Raoul Wallenberg's remarkable life perhaps can only be surpassed by the tragic mystery of his death.  Russia's "liberation" of Hungary in 1945 was just a violent transfer of power from one totalitarian regime to another.  Instead of being treated like the hero that he was, Wallenberg was taken prisoner by the Red Army and transported to Moscow, under the accusation that he was a spy for the capitalist West.  He was never to be seen a free man again.

The Gulag was a barely-survivable prison system at its best, but Wallenberg was treated even sterner than the usual prisoner.  He was a pawn the Russians could perhaps use as future leverage with their enemies.  Solitary confinement was the rule, therefore, likely with frequent interrogations and torture sessions.  He was denied a trial, forbidden any communication with his family or the outside world, refused anything close to proper nutrition or hygiene.

It is undisputed that Wallenberg endured such conditions for at least two years.  Beyond that, his tracks are hard to trace.  Both Sweden and America were hesitant to confront Russia about the mistreatment of their diplomat. The Cold War was settling in; Stalin, and then his successor Khrushchev, were feared.  Thus months turned into years and years into decades, with no real pressure put on Russia to explain the disappearance of Raoul Wallenberg.

When the Kremlin was finally forced to give an explanation, they produced a document stating Wallenberg died of cardiac arrest in prison in 1947 and his body was cremated.  Why, then, do Gulag survivors report brief encounters with a Swedish diplomat named Wallenberg--as late as the mid-1970s?  In fact, there is the very slimmest of possibilities he is still alive today, tucked away in some forlorn cell.  He would now be 97 years old.

The Kremlin knows what really happened to Raoul Wallenberg.  Or, at least they could find out; there are records somewhere.  At this point, the motive is not to place blame, but to bring home a hero, to lay him to rest properly.  Shouldn't his story be told?  Shouldn't his life be honored and his death memorialized?

Words from a Budapest monument to Wallenberg (stolen before it could be unveiled, and never replaced):  "This monument is our silent and eternal gratitude to him and should always remind us of his eternally lasting humanity in an inhuman period."

That is why I have joined the other estimated 20,000 who have sent messages to Vladimir Putin.  You can, too.

Learn more about Raoul Wallenberg here.

12.18.2009

My brush with fame and fortune. Or at least Fabry.

Were you listening to Chris Fabry Live today?  Did you hear Chris read an e-mail from "Karissa in Provo, Utah"?  That was me!

Author and radio veteran Chris Fabry hosts a one-hour program every weekday afternoon; it is full of intelligent, balanced, compassionate discussion on a wide variety of topics that touch the Christian life.

So what was it about today's program that compelled me to fire off an excited e-mail which he read on the air a few minutes later?

The Statler Brothers.

If you missed it, and you're wondering why on earth a retired country music quartet is being talked about on Christian radio, and/or why I was so thrilled, you'll just have to listen for yourself here. ("Listen Now" or "Download Podcast", or look for Dec. 18 program.)

Of course, you can always listen live to future programs on KEYY.

12.03.2009

Color me delighted

Back when I was just getting into the whole iTunes thing (several years behind everyone else, it seems), one of the first songs I downloaded was Kristin Andreassen's "Crayola Doesn't Make a Color for Your Eyes".  It's a clever, cheerful piece of songwriting, sung with delightful harmony and fabulous rhythm by her band Sometymes Why.  What a happy surprise today to find this music video.  Enjoy.