Annual Christmas Letter 2024

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Advent 2024

Dear family and friends,

Here’s our annual Christmas letter, containing equal measures of gratitude (that we know you) and terror (over the state of our country and the world).

We’re grateful, most of all, for our daughters and their families. Whenever we talk – or better yet, whenever we’re together – I’m surprised that Susan and I survived that period of our lives with more-than-full-time jobs, two young children, and full calendars. (To say nothing of houses and yards in need of regular maintenance.) Somehow we did it, though, and I can see that my daughters are doing it too, with a gratifying mixture of love, imagination, patience, and resilience. Adulting is hard (and often thankless) work. But they’re doing it.

I should end there because typing these words brings tears to my eyes.

Yes, I’m a crybaby. Have been one my entire life. I just cry. Much more often when I’m feeling joy, but also occasionally when I’m sad. And boy oh boy, lots of tears these days. Because, well, joy and sadness. This is apparently what old men do. But old men also fly to other continents and walk long distances.

Last October I walked the Portuguese Camino. It’s only 170 miles from Porto to Santiago de Compostela, so it was considerably shorter than the Camino Frances, which was 500 miles from Saint Jean Pied de Port to Santiago. But then I was five years younger when I walked that other route, and five years at my age makes a big difference. In early October I walked the first half of the Portuguese Camino alone, and then the second half with my dear friend Mary Talen, who is at least a foot or so shorter than I am but a surprisingly fast walker. Our talking made the miles go faster. Surprisingly, even after 50 years of friendship, we had a great deal to talk about, and we learned a lot about each other.

My 45^th seminary reunion occurred in May, and I stayed three nights in Alexander Hall – in the same dormitory room I called home for two years! The building has been renovated since I lived there, of course, and it’s now a coed dorm, but the views from my old window were familiar. One evening, our last one together, members of my class gathered in a private dining room at the swanky Nassau Club on Mercer Street and reminisced. We went around the table and, one by one, answered two questions: 1) what brought you to Princeton Seminary, and 2) how did coming here change your life. We talked and listened – I mean, really listened – for well over two hours. I’m crying again.

But when I returned home, I figured that I had caught a flu bug on the airplane. I went to the nearest urgent care and was diagnosed, of all things, with a UTI. Except that oral antibiotics didn’t seem to help, and a couple of days later I found myself at the emergency room at Holland Hospital. I was promptly admitted for a four-night stay to stave off sepsis. After a regimen of intravenous antibiotics, I was released from detention and have never felt so glad to be home. (I had to return a month later for laser lithotripsy to pulverize a kidney stone which, as it turned out, was the cause of the UTI.)

On the last day, the hospitalist who discharged me told me that I could resume “normal activities.” So, naturally I asked, “Like mowing the lawn?” He said no. “Like riding my bike?” He said no again. Actually, he said no to every one of my questions about normal activities, including going to the gym and training for my Camino in October. I can report that I behaved myself for a few days, but the lawn doesn’t mow itself.

My 96-year-old mother enjoyed good health throughout her life. Unlike my dad, she never exercised, but somehow – through good genes, clean living, and picking up after me for 18 years – she was able to live a long life. Visiting her in the last days of her life was difficult, but I reminded myself that she never once complained about giving birth (naturally!) to a baby boy who weighed nearly 12 pounds. In fact, I asked her about that during those last weeks (along with much else), and her response was that she was so glad to have had a boy that she didn’t think to complain. (I think that was mostly but not entirely true.) Anyway, her response reminded me not to complain about making the long drive to Grand Rapids and visiting her at Raybrook Manor where, I must say, she received extraordinary care from everyone. We said good-bye at a memorial service at LaGrave CRC on May 10. My sisters and I haven’t sat together in church for several decades, but there we were, singing the hymns, giving thanks for our mom’s life, and declaring our hope in a life still to come.

That seems like the right note of hope to end on. We’re people of hope, after all, even though at times that hope is can be sorely tested, as it is right now.

I’ll join you in singing,

O sing, choirs of angels, sing in exultation
O come, o come ye to Bethlehem
O come and behold Him, born the King of Angels.

Faithfully yours,

Doug (and Susan)

P.S. That photo at the very top (credit to Mary R. Talen PhD) shows me on the Portuguese Camino last October. It’s going to be used for the cover of my new book, The Traveler’s Path, due out in early 2025. (More about that later!) At the end of the letter is the view from my rooftop room in Santiago de Compostela.