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After much trepidation (and a one week stay in the NICU), my daughter is home from the hospital in time for Christmas, and I couldn’t be more overwhelmed.  As she arrived six weeks early, I know Audrey loves me already for two specific reasons: one, her birth was covered under my Tricare health insurance, which runs until the end of the month; and two, a tax write-off applies for all of the year 2010.  I joke, but I am extremely thankful she’s free.

Henry Olsen of the American Enterprise Institute recently wrote the following: “Paul, in his First Letter to the Corinthians, wrote of ‘faith, hope, and love,’ and said that ‘ the greatest of these three is love.’  The love that Paul speaks of is patient and kind, neither envious, boastful, nor proud.  It is not something one does for another person out of a sense of noblesse oblige.  It is something one does for another person as an equal concerned about the other’s well-being as one is concerned about one’s own.”

The way I see it, this kind of unconditional love is rooted in individual freedom.  Freedom is an idea planted by God in the minds of His children.  Freedom for all depends on another God-given gift, buried within our hearts:  love.  Freedom and love are, therefore, intrinsically related.  Love requires grace; freedom brings peace.  To achieve true peace on earth, we must allow, and indeed enable, others in their pursuit of happiness.

So, Merry Christmas; grace and peace to all.  Be happy for God’s sake, let love grow, and in 2011, let freedom ring.

Written on the road, post-Thanksgiving 2010.

He aimed his truck Northeast and ignored the signs

With Meridian behind him there’s no turning back

On I-59

He’s got a stack of things to do and another he never will

His windshield wipers drag and his temperature gage still

Reads 59

Was that banjo roll on the radio or was it in his mind?

He smiles back at a dog in the cab of truck driven by a man

Who’s 59

Getting older means leaving the passion of youth behind

Like the remnants of a cabin built between that lake and the pines

In ‘59

After trying to move mountains he let the mountains move him

Those Blue Ridges out the window remind him why he’s alive

Doing 95

He’s late again and his mood’s turned dark like the night outside

His DNA is bound to this land but he’s hunting for a sign

For I-95

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Today, my brother Robert left my house in Virginia bound for his new house (also here and here) in Texas.  I stand by my initial assessment of the place: “Rad.”  This has been a long time in the making, to say the least.  If you know Robert, this is a natural progression, and I can’t say I/we aren’t jealous, but I think I speak for everyone close to him by saying we all feel blessed to be a part of his transition.  He deserves a piece of heaven on earth to call his own.

~ Joseph Conrad, 1897