Christmas 2023

Letter 2023

        Hello friends and loved ones, from snowy Kitchener, Ontario, CANADA. The flurries are flying and the headlights twinkle down on Queen Street as people commute home. It finally “feels” like Christmas, which helps a lot in getting motivated to write.

        This has been another tough year with challenges and shifting plans. We have both struggled with rocky employment situations, and I have also had several health challenges. I had fatigue and lethargy all summer, but managed to get my Organizing business moving anyway. I had a new logo designed and am advertising in local magazines. (I also had several weddings.) But by October, my energy was quite low.

        

        Sam and I enjoyed a visit with Marcia and Barb over our wedding anniversary. I supply-preached at Marcia’s UU church and did some organizing. But my fatigue kept me in bed a lot of the time. Once I was back in Canada my second baby tooth became very painful. By the time they had it extracted the dentist agreed that the extensive infection he found under it might have been what was running me down all summer. Now would I get my energy back?

    Sam and I took a long-awaited trip down to the Bryn Athyn area of Pennsylvania to visit our dear friend, Beryl Simonetti. Paul went on ahead to the spiritual world before we were able to see him too but Beryl was there, as wonderful as ever. We also visited my ninety-five-year-old Aunt Audrey Smith—the last remaining sibling from my mom’s family; as well as seeing Sam’s Aunt Molly McDonough, also ninety five! We had many lovely visits with old friends and family. It felt a little bitter-sweet. But we both have so many relatives and heart-connections there it is usually worth the visit.

     Then I got my first ever case of Covid. I fell ill about three days after arriving home, though I masked on the plane. Jordan caught it for the first time at the very same time, and we were two sick puppies together for the duration. At least we didn’t have to isolate from each other.

    It was a full two weeks before either of us felt “better.”  We are both still coughing a lot. Jordan has pretty intense fatigue ongoing and I have gastrointestinal nonsense going on, both seeming to be holdovers from the plague. But we are officially over it.

    I am again crawling back into the organizing saddle, taking on an assistant and starting to have a steady stream of clients. Fingers crossed!

          On the bright side, in May Sam and I enjoyed a cruise up the Saint Lawrence River! We started in Montreal; visited Quebec City and PEI; Sydney and Halifax, Nova Scotia; (I loved Sydney!) and Bar Harbor, Maine. We ended up in Boston, visiting with Sarah, Sam’s sister who lives there. It was gem of a trip. Such great memories!

    I continue to plug away at my second novel. It may not win a Pulitzer, but my fans seem very happy, and I still LOVE spending time with these characters. I just published chapter Thirty-Four!  Seeing as I made the commitment to publish a new chapter every two weeks a year ago, I am thrilled to realize how well it has worked. I would not have gotten this done without the encouragement of my readers. Woo-hoo!! This is the cover art by artist Drayton Mapp. Subscribe to read along at The Cliffside Chapel Series

    In late spring I started the “Soul Sisters’ Support Group” with Cindy Schnarr. There are currently seven of us, and we try to meet once a month. It is amazing how hard it is to find a time when all seven of us are available. But I need a place where I can be fully authentic and honest with others of a similar mind. It fills an empty place in my soul. I love hearing each woman’s struggles and joys, and we end up doing a lot of laughing. (It is amazing how easy it is to love someone when they are fully authentic!) To these local soul sisters, I love you!

    I have a habit of starting groups like this wherever I go. Many have been under the auspices of a church, but not all. I highly recommend building such a community if you want one and don’t have one.  I would be happy to mentor you in building a safe space that you love.

Blessed are you

who bear the light

in unbearable times,

who testify

to its endurance

amid the unendurable,

who bear witness

to its persistence

when everything seems

in shadow

and grief. Blessed are you

in whom the light lives,

in whom the brightness blazes—

your heart a chapel,

an altar where

in the deepest night can be seen

the fire that shines forth in you

in unaccountable faith,

in stubborn hope,

in love that illumines

every broken thing it finds.

© Jan Richardson from Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons.

From Sam in New York (for now) and I in Kitchener, Ontario, our love and warm greetings go out to you. Pray for the birth of the light. Pray for the resurrection over and over again. The Divine is always waiting to come again and again and again—open, loving, wise, and mind-blowingly kind.

        AliSam

(PS. Sam will be celebrating Christmas with me in Kitchener for the first time since our marriage! Yay!!)