Snow came early and with it icy weather for 10 days.  On top of the mandate to us to stop work, the weather froze us into immobility.  But our prayer life is like it has never been before.  We have breakfast and prayer together at 9 a.m.  On Mondays and Wednesdays, other people come at 7 a.m. for morning prayer using a Celtic prayerbook, the Catholic prayerbook, or lectio divina, and at 5 p.m. on Wednesdays for an hour of quiet meditation.  We are considering going to a monastery for a day or two to participate in the rhythm of the monastic life where one practices silence and prays more and with as much intention as one eats.  Our Protestant resistance to rote spiritual practice has diminished devotion to spiritual discipline.  This is harder for Marda than Ward.

Ward’s Christmas poem here is perfected and he did a very nice job bringing it to the worship time at Ballysillan Presbyterian Church on December 12th.  We hope Aubrey recorded it as the delivery was brilliant. Watch the quonstothers website as we will post it there if available.

We missed the cut-off for mailing packages back to the States.  We are coming past the deadline for mailing cards.  Suffice to say we are frozen into slow motion.  Christmas has