Season’s Greetings! It is only as we enter the winter season that we share "season's greetings." Certainly the transitions into spring, out of the winter’s bitter cold, and into the autumn, after summer’s heat, are welcomed as much or more than the transition into winter. But this is the season that induces greetings on its behalf. Why?

If we compare the year to a day, it is the transition into evening. If we compare a year to our lifetime, it is the transition into old age. Days get shorter. The heavy lifting is over. It is time to rest, reflect, to recall, to restore. Farmers repair the tools they have used over the growing season. The early onset and longer period of the evening brings its charms to the forefront. At eventide we repair to home, to the hearth -- or whatever substitute we have for a hearth (hopefully not only a TV). What it really means is family time.

The evening is the day’s vacation time, the day’s Sabbath. I was a work addict and I’m taking a 12-step program to release myself from that. I suffer relapses, but I am doing much better. We need to recreate ourselves and renew our family life. I read a short poem of aphorism recently -- I wish I’d kept it -- about the special power of the father arriving at home in the evening. Ever since I read that, I’ve felt a greater meaning to my coming home. To all the dads out there: you make a big difference. Your kids need help with homework or with getting into college -- it’s important. She needs someone to share her day with -- it’s important. Don’t go home for yourself; go home for the sake of others. There are others who can do your job, but no one else who can be the husband of your wife and father of your children.

Sentimentalism? In part; yes, but sentiment is rooted in emotion and emotion is the deepest attribute of God. May the world be washed in sentimentalism! Awash with silly love songs!

Most reading this are UTS alumni from 15, 20, 25, even 30 years ago. We are moving through the seasons of our lives together. The spring does not last forever, and the summer is fleeting as well. Many of us are in the evening time. Let’s neither evade it nor succumb to it. Let’s bring forth its value. Take time to mentor someone younger than you (and there are more and more of such folk around). Two days ago I took a group of students up to Woodstock, just to look around and have a snack and talk. One of them told me, as we walked back to the cars, how great it is just to have time with "an elder." And I recalled our trips as students to Four Brothers with Dr. Hausner and our walks on Father’s Trail with President Kim.

It is also said that one enters one’s "second childhood" as one gets older. What a blessing, because Jesus said you have to turn and become as a child to enter the kingdom of heaven. On True Children’s Day this year I reflected that we all are children, no matter our age, and that is a good thing. Children are learners, and we need to continually learn. Children trust. Children believe. Children are capable of receiving love. When we think of the word, "piety," we think of childhood, of filial piety. But piety is a strength our entire life. Piety is the willingness to believe, to refer myself to what is above and beyond and yet deeply and intimately personal.

These things build the joy that comes to us at year’s end, as the shadows of evening approach in the mid-afternoon, reminding us that night is drawing near and symbolizing that the end of things is at hand, bringing good tidings to the world. At the end of the year, in the dead of winter, a child is born. Season’s Greetings.

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