News from Tom and Leslie Johnson
We wish you all a happy holiday season!
May the joy of Christ’s coming as a baby
fill your heart as you look forward to
His return.
Have a healthy and happy New Year of 2023!
We hope you have had a blessed Advent, celebrating the coming of Jesus. Today is the third day of Christmas, as some count, but we are not thinking about the three French hens mentioned in the famous song.
When we moved to Prague in 1996, several of my (Tom’s) first university students were refugees from the Yugoslav Wars, wars filled with unspeakable crimes against humanity. My students had been on opposite sides in the war. In a class on the ethics of war, a young woman told her experience of holding a friend in her arms while he died, after he had been hit by a sniper. A young man in the class said he might have been the sniper who killed her friend, since he had been a sniper on the other side at that time and place. They had all fled so they would not have to kill or be killed. Since that time, we have heard and seen the plight of numerous people fleeing for their lives, many of whom are our brothers and sisters in Christ.
On the recent Keith and Kristyn Getty “Sing! An Irish Christmas,” we heard the English poet Malcolm Guite recite his poem “Refugee.” We found it very encouraging. Guite included it as a reading for December 28 in a book of poems for Advent which he edited, which I quickly purchased.
Refugee
We think of him as safe beneath the steeple,
Or cosy in a crib beside the font,
But he is with a million displaced people
On the long road of weariness and want.
For even as we sing our final carol
His family is up and on that road,
Fleeing the wrath of someone else’s quarrel,
Glancing behind and shouldering their load.
Whilst Herod rages still from his dark tower
Christ clings to Mary, fingers tightly curled,
The lambs are slaughtered by the men of power,
And death squads spread their curse across the world.
But every Herod dies, and comes alone
To stand before the Lamb upon the throne.
Malcolm Guite, Waiting on the Word (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2015) Kindle, 2036-2042.
Thank you so much!
We appreciate you all and are thankful for the Lord’s work through you!
Tom & Leslie Johnson