Roth Christmas Epistle 2022

 

Our weekly Thursday night visits with Anawynn (as Dustin and Kelly Jo do their dance class thing) have changed from Grandma and Grandpa reading to her at bedtime to the three of us sharing those reading duties. She is nine, after all, and becoming a beautiful young lady full of creativity and humor.

How is it possible that Ivy June is almost three??!? And baby sister Ezra Ann (1) is walking and handling stairs like a master, while her face lights up every time she sees us...heart-melting. Curtis and Abbey purchased their first home this year and Curtis became the full-time Children's Pastor at Valley...the church where HE was once a child and his daddy once was the youth minister!

Johnathan, Shonda, and Maverick (6) hosted us for a wonderful weekend at their home in Arkansas. We had a great time meeting their two white labradoodles, Calvin and Hobbes.

Phil is enjoying his work as an electrician,  Angel continues to help pump up the reading skills of her elementary-aged flock, Jesse (11) played both soccer and baseball (impressing both his coaches), and Thomas (8) seems to be on the verge of mastering some snowboarding skills and putting one on his Christmas wish list.

Debbie continued to add more in-person events to her resume with Rest in Him Ministry, and started working on a second book. She was honored to participate in Valley Christian Church's Advent sermon series this year. It was based on the women who appear in Jesus' genealogy, and Debbie's message was about Ruth. We both absolutely love the upstairs remodel (pictured below) that was accomplished thanks to an inheritance from Dewey's mom. And oh yeah...with the employment news in the following paragraph, Debbie was able to retire after 24.5 years as a para-professional with ISD 196!

Dewey went straight from his short-term contract with Securian Financial ending on April 1 to starting a full-time position with a company called EQ, with an enjoyable two weeks off in between...as Goldilocks would say, it was juuuuust right!  His creative outlets are still fired up, including some additional Santa gigs this year. Get caught up on all the info about blogs and podcasts and Facebook humor pages by going HERE. And oh yeah...on August 2nd, he finished his 65th trip around the sun.

Take some time to rest in the knowledge that you are loved, not only by us but by the One who knows you best of all. Heaven came to Earth in a small package, but it had big results.  Have a blessed new year!

Books I Read in 2022, Vol. XVI

 

WOULD YOU BAPTIZE AN EXTRATERRESTRIAL? ...and Other Questions from the Astronomers' In-box at the Vatican Observatory
Guy Consolmagno, SJ and Paul Mueller, SJ

Do you think that both science and faith should be taken seriously, but you struggle with how to hold science and faith together, with integrity? Do you find yourself tending to keep science and faith isolated from each other, in separate, watertight compartments, but you wish that science and faith didn't have to "take turns" in your life? Then this book is for you. Read on!

This is another book I bought for 25 cents from the library and it was worth far more than that. By the title, I thought this was going to be a kind of light-hearted romp through a bunch of silly questions, and it certainly has a sense of humor, but it functions mostly as an excellent discussion about how faith and science do not need to be in competition with each other. I gained a helpful perspective by reading this book, and would be happy to let anyone borrow it.

First line: Would you baptize an extraterrestrial is one of the questions people ask us all the time here at the Vatican Observatory...along with questions about the Star of Bethlehem, the beginning and end of the universe, Galileo, Pluto, black holes, killer asteroids, and all the other topics astronomers always get asked about.

Page 56, Line 5: When you think that the "fundamentals" are all that's important, or that knowing the "fundamentals" is enough by itself, it's like seeing only the dots of paint in Seurat's painting.

Last line: I expect that someday we'll learn that even in this cosmos, we are not alone.

Criminal Minds Evolution: Or Is It Devolution?

 

WHEREAS Beloved and I had watched all 15 seasons of Criminal Minds back when we were foolishly spending money on Netflix, and

WHEREAS we are currently enjoying the Paramount+ login provided by our second daughter and her husband, and

WHEREAS Season 16 of Criminal Minds (now called Criminal Minds Evolution) started streaming on Paramount+,

THEREFORE

Beloved and I were excited to begin watching the new episodes.

HOWEVER

With its move away from broadcast television to a streaming service and the ability to label itself TV-MA, the powers that be have changed nothing about the series except to add F-bombs and vulgar references to solid waste.

And they apparently think this is an improvement.

I honestly don't understand.

For 15 years, we've grown to appreciate these characters as professional-sounding, intellectual-yet-passionate FBI agents. Now, they come across as barely-controlled street vigilantes who express their frustration by using the squalid language of thugs.

And they apparently think this is an improvement.

Seriously, I don't get it. How is this better storytelling?