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The Victoria

GAZETTE

         Before I put our 2011 Christmas cards away -- into a basket next to the basket of 2010 Christmas cards which is next to the basket of 2009 Christmas cards -- do  you know anybody who recycles Christmas cards? -- I reread them one last time. 

         I love Christmas cards and letters and pictures and, apparently, I am not alone.  It's a nationwide phenomenon that also occurs in other Christian societies as well.  People cannot be forever divided and conquered as long as we keep sending Christmas cards.

         How did Christmas cards get started?  It was, obviously, after the birth of Jesus Christ and so we can narrow it down to these last 2,000 years of human history.  Nobody said Merry Christmas in the days of Abraham (approximately 2000 BC) or Moses (1200 BC) or King David (1000 BC) or Aristotle (350 BC).

         One might surmise that the sending of Christmas cards only became popular after the invention of the printing press (1440 A.D.) and mail delivery.  I suggest it was popular long before that.  After all, communicating is what humans do.

         Words and pictures are part of human history (recall the art on walls of prehistoric caves and the hieroglyphics and papyrus of ancient Egypt) and so cards and letters at Christmas time could hardly have been avoided, considering the Word made flesh.  Gossip alone ensured the invention of Christmas cards.

         As usual, the cards we received this year were filled with photos and messages that reconnected us with others over time and miles, and there was also news that surprised me.  I hadn't known, for example, that Pastor Bob Johnson had died. 

         Pastor Bob had become an integral part of the Victoria landscape when he served at Holy Cross Lutheran Church up on Highway 7.  Holy Cross was one of the four churches that were involved in our Community Thanksgiving Service when Pastor Bob was here:  Holy Cross Lutheran, Lake Auburn Moravian, Minnewashta Community Church, and St. Victoria Catholic. 

         The four pastors -- Pastor Bob, Pastor Frank Jones, Pastor Doug Roper, and Father Elstan -- met for lunch on a monthly basis at the Victoria House.  They enjoyed not just the community but each other. 

         Pastor Bob was already at Holy Cross in 1993 and was installed in January of 1994.  In January of 1995, in his monthly column in the Gazette, he wrote, "We must delight in each other, make each others' condition our own, rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together."  I visited with him on occasion at his church office and we challenged each other as mutual seekers of truth.

         When Pastor Bob resigned from Holy Cross, he wrote in the August 2000 issue of the Gazette, "There are many in the geographical area that the Gazette covers who made footprints on this pastor's heart, footprints that will remain until the day I die."

         Before I set aside our Christmas cards I'll look once again at the pictures of Abby, Stella, and Zoe Fox -- triplets born prematurely over five years ago to our friends Bert and Lucy Tellers of Victoria.  How beautiful and healthy they are.

         I'll study the fun photos of John and Linda Flemming of Prior Lake and their children and grandchildren playing at Grandview Lodge up at Brainerd.  Allan and I were classmates of John and graduated together from Minneota High School.

         I'll re-read the message from Dan and Mary Henrich of Colonial Heights, Virginia.  Mary and I were roommates at Briar Cliff College in Sioux City, Iowa, and Dan was a classmate of ours along with Harve, Sue, Don, Bob, Judy, Donna, Dave, and so many others during that wonderful time.

         I'll linger a while with John and Kathy Oertle of Stillwater when I see again the photograph of their family.  Allan and I first met John and Kathy over 40 years ago after we married and moved to a duplex next to them in Mound.

         When I stop for a moment at the 2011  photo of Arland and Joan Hirman, now living in Alexandria, I'll think of our evolving and ever-changing neighborhood.  We met Joan and Arlie when they built the red two-story next to us down here by Schutz Lake, where Al and Jan Velasco and their kids now live.

         Many families from our neighborhood have moved away over the years.  Some of them you might remember such as the Shaws, Plochers, Bowsers, Willems, Hubers, Rupps, Holways, Balls, Rodgers, Raiches, Carters, and Proffitts.  Remember the Malinkas, Timmers, Roths, Rosses, Andersons, Brekkes, Somers, Welchs, Warringtons, Petersons, Drurys, Dauwalters? 

         There are others who have come and     gone from our neighborhood in these past 40 years.  We only hear from a few of them, but even one Christmas card from one of them triggers a boatload of memories and reminds us who we are.  "I am a part of all that I have met."

         And that includes those we meet, see, and touch on a regular basis.  Their Christmas cards, too, I will reread one last time before I put them away.  Should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind?

January 2012

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