Vita 2: January

January 2, 1981: a cold, Kentucky winter day. Carter is still President but Reagan has been elected. A mother, Jeanette, of 2 sons in her late 20's wakes up knowing that this will be the day her third child is born...it is already 2 days past due and therefore, did not give her and her husband another tax break for the 1980 fiscal year. But she knows the routine...her water breaks some time in the morning, yet she goes to work anyway. It's the farm store her husband (Jack) and father-in-law own. She goes to do some 'necessary' paper work, whatever that means. It's snowy outside...but not so bad as to adversely affect traveling. Jeanette drives back home after her work tasks are completed. She waits at home for a couple of hours and somewhere around noon calls her husband: 'It's time to go to the hospital.' (Not sure where her two sons are at this point...maybe at their grandparents?) Jack comes home and gets her in the car around 12:30. It's a half-hour drive to the hospital and while the driving conditions aren't too bad, they're not perfect; so speeding was not an option. They pull up to the entrance at 1:00 where hospital staff begin wheeling Jeanette toward the delivery area while Jack goes to park and get her registered (these are the days before pre-registration was optional). After finishing the paperwork, Jack heads toward the delivery room, but is met by the doctor, who exclaims, 'Mr. Rudy, you have another son!' 'Already? We just got here!' It was 1:23...and that is the story of how I came into the world.

January...now Kentucky is no Siberia in terms of brutality of the weather conditions this time of the year, but if you live in the northern hemisphere, January captures winter's essence for where you live. Now we don't really know when Jesus was born but for a millennium and a half the Church has celebrated it on December 25 through January 6 (Epiphany, when the Magi visited Jesus), and these are the '12 Days of Christmas.' So I was born on the 'Nine Ladies Dancing' (which represent the 9 'fruits of the Spirit' from Galatians 5.22-23). I think dancing is a cool way of thinking about the fruits of the Spirit...hmmm. Having a birthday near Christmas was always kinda cool and kinda not: it meant more presents that time of the year but none for the rest...whatever!

I was introduced to a song about winter & Christmas when I played in the All-District Band in 8th grade: 'In the Bleak Midwinter'...Kevin Max (from dc Talk) has done a pretty sweet version of the tune. The song is actually in the UM Hymnal: #221. Here are the lyrics. Other songs come to mind when I think of winter...all 6 songs on Jon Foreman's album entitled 'Winter,' Nichole Nordeman's 'Every Season.' I love winter (who knows if I'd say the same if I were in Alaska?). Sweaters, hot chocolate, Christmastide, my birthday, fireplaces, cuddling, and call me weird but the bare branches on the tree outside, the dead grass, and even the nights starting earlier. 'Even now in death, You open doors for life to enter' (Nordeman).

I remember a professor who said that his idea of a 'utopia' is not some tropical locale where you get to relax all the time...rather it is one that has all seasons...you can learn, experience, and celebrate things in winter that you cannot in summer, and vice versa. It's not just 'change' but of what the 'change' consists...what it brings...fruit takes time and though it may only show or come to 'fruition' in one season...it couldn't have gotten there without the others: 'But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.' Nine Ladies Dancing.

Pax!