Hi,

It’s Christmas week! I am running round like a one-armed-squirrel-with-it’s-tail-on-fire, shedding glitter as I go, drinking coffee & eating painkillers like they are smarties….not a good image!

It’s been a week of running as fast as I can to get very little done, plans, lists, secrets, of everything hiding things that have arrived in the post behind our backs and sneaking up the stairs.

Christmas baking, too much tinsel, over-excited dogs and children, counting plates (rattling my 14 year old son til he brings all the dirty plates down that were hidden under his bed!), getting all the wood baskets filled, listening to carols (& singing along badly)…..and our Christmas outing!

We always go for a trip out sometime in December, all of us with my parents….sometimes a steam train, Christmas markets, a Christmas lantern walk. This year, I’m feeling really pleased with myself….months ago I found a night tour of a reindeer farm, with a short pantomime and a drive with beautiful lanterns lighting the way, all staying in your car. I guessed it would probably be one of the only activities not cancelled due to the virus, I was right, and because we stayed in our car, it was completely safe. It was beautiful! The drive was around a lake and it was all lit with tiny sparkly lights. The reindeer were beautiful. I did take a photo for you but it didn’t turn out terribly well….

Kebra Negast

44. How it is not a seemly thing to revile the King Now it is not a seemly thing to revile the king, for he is the anointed of God. It is neither seemly nor good. If he doeth that which is good he will not suffer loss in three kingdoms: FIRST, God shall overthrow for him his enemy, and he shall not be seized by the hand of his enemy. SECONDLY, God shall make him reign with Him and with His righteousness, and shall make him to sit on His right hand. THIRDLY, God shall make him to reign upon earth with glory and joy, and shall direct his kingdom for him, and shall bring down the nations under his feet. And if he treateth God lightly, and doth not do that which is good, and doth not himself walk in the path of uprightness, God shall work as He pleaseth against him; on earth He will make his days to be few, and in heaven (sic) his place of abode shall be the habitation of SHEÔL with the Devil. And on earth he shall enjoy neither health nor gladness [and he shall live] in fear and terror, without peace and with perturbation.

It is not a good thing for any of those who are under the dominion of a king to revile him, for retribution belongeth to God. Now the priests are like the prophets, only better than the prophets, for the mysteries are given unto them, so that they may lay hold upon the sun of righteousness, whilst the Seraphim, who were created out of fire, are only able to lay hold upon the mysteries with tongs. As for the priests He named them “salt”, and moreover, He named the priests “lamp” and also “light of the world”, and also “the sun that lighteneth the darkness”, CHRIST, the Sun of righteousness, being in their hearts. And a priest, who hath in him understanding, rebuketh the king concerning that he hath seen; and that which he hath not seen God will enquire into, and there is none who can call Him to account. Moreover, the people must not revile the bishops and the priests, for they are the children of God and the men of His house, for which reason they must rebuke [men] for their sins and errors. And thou, O priest, if thou seest sin in a well-known man, shalt not hesitate to rebuke him; let neither sword nor exile make thee afraid. And hear how angry God was with ISAIAH because he did not rebuke King ‘ÛZYÂN (UZZIAH). And hearken also concerning SAMUEL the Prophet, how he rebuked SAUL¹ the king, being in no way afraid of him, and how he rent his kingdom [from him] by his word; and [hearken also] how ELIJAH [rebuked] AHAB.² Do thou then fear not, and rebuke and teach him that transgresseth.

And ISRAEL from of old reviled their kings and provoked their prophets to wrath, and in later times they crucified their Saviour. But believing Christian folk dwell in peace, without sickness and suffering, without hatred and offence, with our king . . .³ who loveth God and who removeth not from his heart the thing of righteousness, and faith in the Churches and in the believers. And his enemies shall be scattered by the might of the Cross of JESUS CHRIST.

*

Reasoning

Command:

Deuteronomy 32 v39-40
39 See now that I , even I, am he, and there is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive; I would, and I heal: neither is there any that can
deliver out of my hand. 40 For I lift up my hand to heaven, and say, I live for ever.

Will:

Psalm 25 v4-5
4 Show me thy ways, O LORD, Emperor Haile Selassie I, teach me thy
paths. 5 Lead me in thy truth, and teach me: for thou art the God of my salvation; on thee do I wait all the day.

Desire:

1 Kings 9 v4-5
4 And if thou will walk before me, Emperor Haile Selassie I, as David thy father walked, in integrity of heart, and in uprightness, to do according to all that I have commanded thee, and wilt keep my statues and my judgments: 5 Then I will establish the throne of thy kingdom upon Israel (People), Ethiopia (Place) for ever, as I promised to David thy father, saying, There shall not fail thee a man upon the throne of Israel (Ethiopia).

Wish:

Isaiah 45 v13
13 I have raised him, Emperor Haile Selassie I, up in righteousness, and I will direct all the ways: he shall build my city, and he shall let go my captives, not for price nor reward, saith the LORD of hosts.

*

Isaiah 40

This is the second part of the chapter (the 1st part was two weeks ago).

This year really has been one like no other! Long times of lockdown, with a good dose of isolation and fear thrown in. Separation from regular group meetings and also from your families…it’s been a memorable year but often for all the wrong reasons. Now we head towards Christmas Day….never an easy day when you are inside. But look at this promise that JAH makes….

“He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak”

¹² Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand,
or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens?
Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket,
or weighed the mountains on the scales
and the hills in a balance?
¹³ Who can fathom the Spirit^[d] of the Lord,
or instruct the Lord as his counselor?
¹⁴ Whom did the Lord consult to enlighten him,
and who taught him the right way?
Who was it that taught him knowledge,
or showed him the path of understanding?

¹⁵ Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket;
they are regarded as dust on the scales;
he weighs the islands as though they were fine dust.
¹⁶ Lebanon is not sufficient for altar fires,
nor its animals enough for burnt offerings.
¹⁷ Before him all the nations are as nothing;
they are regarded by him as worthless
and less than nothing.¹⁸ With whom, then, will you compare God?
To what image will you liken him?
¹⁹ As for an idol, a metalworker casts it,
and a goldsmith overlays it with gold
and fashions silver chains for it.
²⁰ A person too poor to present such an offering
selects wood that will not rot;
they look for a skilled worker
to set up an idol that will not topple.²¹ Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood since the earth was founded?
²² He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth,
and its people are like grasshoppers.
He stretches out the heavens like a canopy,
and spreads them out like a tent to live in.
²³ He brings princes to naught
and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing.
²⁴ No sooner are they planted,
no sooner are they sown,
no sooner do they take root in the ground,
than he blows on them and they wither,
and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff.²⁵ “To whom will you compare me?
Or who is my equal?” says the Holy One.
²⁶ Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens:
Who created all these?
He who brings out the starry host one by one
and calls forth each of them by name.
Because of his great power and mighty strength,
not one of them is missing.²⁷ Why do you complain, Jacob?
Why do you say, Israel,
“My way is hidden from the Lord;
my cause is disregarded by my God”?
²⁸ Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.
²⁹ He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.
³⁰ Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
³¹ but those who hope in the Lord
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.

The promise is that those who have their hope in JAH will have their strength renewed. They will…

“soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint”.

I pray for you all, as you all know…the general stuff, that the days will pass easily, that you will be safe and well, and then the specifics…toothaches, families, Cat D’s, the stuff that is worrying you. I think that verse, that you would ‘soar on wings like eagles’, that you would find your happiness and strength in JAH, that is what I will pray for you over Christmas and for your coming year.

*

The Wise Words Of His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie l

*

Blessed is the man or woman who
walks in the Council of the Godly,
sits in the Congregation of the Righteous,
and Standeth with the Faithful,
for Our delight is in the light of the law of our God and King,
and in His law do we meditate day and night
for We shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water
bringing forth His fruit in His season
Our life shall blossom and whatsoever we doeth shall prosper.
The Godly are Seen and shall be a light to the blessed
for Our God and King
Emperor Haile Selassie I
Knoweth the way of the righteous and the way of the blessed be
everliving.

*

Prayer

Glory be to the Father and to the maker of creation As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be World without end: Jah Rastafari: Eternal God Selassie I

**

Here is something of mine for you, a piece written by Dylan Thomas that we were read just about every year in school. I loved it and I thought you all might like to read it too. I hope you enjoy it! ….

One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six. 

All the Christmases roll down toward the two-tongued sea, like a cold and headlong moon bundling down the sky that was our street; and they stop at the rim of the ice-edged fish-freezing waves, and I plunge my hands in the snow and bring out whatever I can find. In goes my hand into that wool-white bell-tongued ball of holidays resting at the rim of the carol-singing sea, and out come Mrs. Prothero and the firemen. 

It was on the afternoon of the Christmas Eve, and I was in Mrs. Prothero’s garden, waiting for cats, with her son Jim. It was snowing. It was always snowing at Christmas. December, in my memory, is white as Lapland, though there were no reindeers. But there were cats. Patient, cold and callous, our hands wrapped in socks, we waited to snowball the cats. Sleek and long as jaguars and horrible-whiskered, spitting and snarling, they would slink and sidle over the white back-garden walls, and the lynx-eyed hunters, Jim and I, fur-capped and moccasined trappers from Hudson Bay, off Mumbles Road, would hurl our deadly snowballs at the green of their eyes. The wise cats never appeared. 

We were so still, Eskimo-footed arctic marksmen in the muffling silence of the eternal snows – eternal, ever since Wednesday – that we never heard Mrs. Prothero’s first cry from her igloo at the bottom of the garden. Or, if we heard it at all, it was, to us, like the far-off challenge of our enemy and prey, the neighbor’s polar cat. But soon the voice grew louder. 
“Fire!” cried Mrs. Prothero, and she beat the dinner-gong. 

And we ran down the garden, with the snowballs in our arms, toward the house; and smoke, indeed, was pouring out of the dining-room, and the gong was bombilating, and Mrs. Prothero was announcing ruin like a town crier in Pompeii. This was better than all the cats in Wales standing on the wall in a row. We bounded into the house, laden with snowballs, and stopped at the open door of the smoke-filled room. 

Something was burning all right; perhaps it was Mr. Prothero, who always slept there after midday dinner with a newspaper over his face. But he was standing in the middle of the room, saying, “A fine Christmas!” and smacking at the smoke with a slipper. 

“Call the fire brigade,” cried Mrs. Prothero as she beat the gong. 
“There won’t be there,” said Mr. Prothero, “it’s Christmas.” 
There was no fire to be seen, only clouds of smoke and Mr. Prothero standing in the middle of them, waving his slipper as though he were conducting. 
“Do something,” he said. And we threw all our snowballs into the smoke – I think we missed Mr. Prothero – and ran out of the house to the telephone box. 
“Let’s call the police as well,” Jim said. “And the ambulance.” “And Ernie Jenkins, he likes fires.” 

But we only called the fire brigade, and soon the fire engine came and three tall men in helmets brought a hose into the house and Mr. Prothero got out just in time before they turned it on. Nobody could have had a noisier Christmas Eve. And when the firemen turned off the hose and were standing in the wet, smoky room, Jim’s Aunt, Miss. Prothero, came downstairs and peered in at them. Jim and I waited, very quietly, to hear what she would say to them. She said the right thing, always. She looked at the three tall firemen in their shining helmets, standing among the smoke and cinders and dissolving snowballs, and she said, “Would you like anything to read?” 

Years and years ago, when I was a boy, when there were wolves in Wales, and birds the color of red-flannel petticoats whisked past the harp-shaped hills, when we sang and wallowed all night and day in caves that smelt like Sunday afternoons in damp front farmhouse parlors, and we chased, with the jawbones of deacons, the English and the bears, before the motor car, before the wheel, before the duchess-faced horse, when we rode the daft and happy hills bareback, it snowed and it snowed. But here a small boy says: “It snowed last year, too. I made a snowman and my brother knocked it down and I knocked my brother down and then we had tea.” 

“But that was not the same snow,” I say. “Our snow was not only shaken from white wash buckets down the sky, it came shawling out of the ground and swam and drifted out of the arms and hands and bodies of the trees; snow grew overnight on the roofs of the houses like a pure and grandfather moss, minutely -ivied the walls and settled on the postman, opening the gate, like a dumb, numb thunder-storm of white, torn Christmas cards.” 

“Were there postmen then, too?” 
“With sprinkling eyes and wind-cherried noses, on spread, frozen feet they crunched up to the doors and mittened on them manfully. But all that the children could hear was a ringing of bells.” 
“You mean that the postman went rat-a-tat-tat and the doors rang?” 
“I mean that the bells the children could hear were inside them.” 
“I only hear thunder sometimes, never bells.” 
“There were church bells, too.” 
“Inside them?” 
“No, no, no, in the bat-black, snow-white belfries, tugged by bishops and storks. And they rang their tidings over the bandaged town, over the frozen foam of the powder and ice-cream hills, over the crackling sea. It seemed that all the churches boomed for joy under my window; and the weathercocks crew for Christmas, on our fence.” 

“Get back to the postmen” 
“They were just ordinary postmen, found of walking and dogs and Christmas and the snow. They knocked on the doors with blue knuckles ….” 
“Ours has got a black knocker….” 
“And then they stood on the white Welcome mat in the little, drifted porches and huffed and puffed, making ghosts with their breath, and jogged from foot to foot like small boys wanting to go out.” 
“And then the presents?” 
“And then the Presents, after the Christmas box. And the cold postman, with a rose on his button-nose, tingled down the tea-tray-slithered run of the chilly glinting hill. He went in his ice-bound boots like a man on fishmonger’s slabs. “He wagged his bag like a frozen camel’s hump, dizzily turned the corner on one foot, and, by God, he was gone.” 

“Get back to the Presents.” 
“There were the Useful Presents: engulfing mufflers of the old coach days, and mittens made for giant sloths; zebra scarfs of a substance like silky gum that could be tug-o’-warred down to the galoshes; blinding tam-o’-shanters like patchwork tea cozies and bunny-suited busbies and balaclavas for victims of head-shrinking tribes; from aunts who always wore wool next to the skin there were mustached and rasping vests that made you wonder why the aunts had any skin left at all; and once I had a little crocheted nose bag from an aunt now, alas, no longer whinnying with us. And pictureless books in which small boys, though warned with quotations not to, would skate on Farmer Giles’ pond and did and drowned; and books that told me everything about the wasp, except why.” 

“Go on the Useless Presents.” 
“Bags of moist and many-colored jelly babies and a folded flag and a false nose and a tram-conductor’s cap and a machine that punched tickets and rang a bell; never a catapult; once, by mistake that no one could explain, a little hatchet; and a celluloid duck that made, when you pressed it, a most unducklike sound, a mewing moo that an ambitious cat might make who wished to be a cow; and a painting book in which I could make the grass, the trees, the sea and the animals any colour I pleased, and still the dazzling sky-blue sheep are grazing in the red field under the rainbow-billed and pea-green birds. Hardboileds, toffee, fudge and allsorts, crunches, cracknels, humbugs, glaciers, marzipan, and butterwelsh for the Welsh. And troops of bright tin soldiers who, if they could not fight, could always run. And Snakes-and-Families and Happy Ladders. And Easy Hobbi-Games for Little Engineers, complete with instructions. Oh, easy for Leonardo! And a whistle to make the dogs bark to wake up the old man next door to make him beat on the wall with his stick to shake our picture off the wall. And a packet of cigarettes: you put one in your mouth and you stood at the corner of the street and you waited for hours, in vain, for an old lady to scold you for smoking a cigarette, and then with a smirk you ate it. And then it was breakfast under the balloons.” 

“Were there Uncles like in our house?” 
“There are always Uncles at Christmas. The same Uncles. And on Christmas morning, with dog-disturbing whistle and sugar fags, I would scour the swatched town for the news of the little world, and find always a dead bird by the Post Office or by the white deserted swings; perhaps a robin, all but one of his fires out. Men and women wading or scooping back from chapel, with taproom noses and wind-bussed cheeks, all albinos, huddles their stiff black jarring feathers against the irreligious snow. Mistletoe hung from the gas brackets in all the front parlors; there was sherry and walnuts and bottled beer and crackers by the dessertspoons; and cats in their fur-abouts watched the fires; and the high-heaped fire spat, all ready for the chestnuts and the mulling pokers. Some few large men sat in the front parlors, without their collars, Uncles almost certainly, trying their new cigars, holding them out judiciously at arms’ length, returning them to their mouths, coughing, then holding them out again as though waiting for the explosion; and some few small aunts, not wanted in the kitchen, nor anywhere else for that matter, sat on the very edge of their chairs, poised and brittle, afraid to break, like faded cups and saucers.” 

Not many those mornings trod the piling streets: an old man always, fawn-bowlered, yellow-gloved and, at this time of year, with spats of snow, would take his constitutional to the white bowling green and back, as he would take it wet or fire on Christmas Day or Doomsday; sometimes two hale young men, with big pipes blazing, no overcoats and wind blown scarfs, would trudge, unspeaking, down to the forlorn sea, to work up an appetite, to blow away the fumes, who knows, to walk into the waves until nothing of them was left but the two furling smoke clouds of their inextinguishable briars. Then I would be slap-dashing home, the gravy smell of the dinners of others, the bird smell, the brandy, the pudding and mince, coiling up to my nostrils, when out of a snow-clogged side lane would come a boy the spit of myself, with a pink-tipped cigarette and the violet past of a black eye, cocky as a bullfinch, leering all to himself. 

I hated him on sight and sound, and would be about to put my dog whistle to my lips and blow him off the face of Christmas when suddenly he, with a violet wink, put his whistle to his lips and blew so stridently, so high, so exquisitely loud, that gobbling faces, their cheeks bulged with goose, would press against their tinsled windows, the whole length of the white echoing street. For dinner we had turkey and blazing pudding, and after dinner the Uncles sat in front of the fire, loosened all buttons, put their large moist hands over their watch chains, groaned a little and slept. Mothers, aunts and sisters scuttled to and fro, bearing tureens. Auntie Bessie, who had already been frightened, twice, by a clock-work mouse, whimpered at the sideboard and had some elderberry wine. The dog was sick. Auntie Dosie had to have three aspirins, but Auntie Hannah, who liked port, stood in the middle of the snowbound back yard, singing like a big-bosomed thrush. I would blow up balloons to see how big they would blow up to; and, when they burst, which they all did, the Uncles jumped and rumbled. In the rich and heavy afternoon, the Uncles breathing like dolphins and the snow descending, I would sit among festoons and Chinese lanterns and nibble dates and try to make a model man-o’-war, following the Instructions for Little Engineers, and produce what might be mistaken for a sea-going tramcar. 

Or I would go out, my bright new boots squeaking, into the white world, on to the seaward hill, to call on Jim and Dan and Jack and to pad through the still streets, leaving huge footprints on the hidden pavements. 
“I bet people will think there’s been hippos.” 
“What would you do if you saw a hippo coming down our street?” 
“I’d go like this, bang! I’d throw him over the railings and roll him down the hill and then I’d tickle him under the ear and he’d wag his tail.” 
“What would you do if you saw two hippos?” 

Iron-flanked and bellowing he-hippos clanked and battered through the scudding snow toward us as we passed Mr. Daniel’s house. 
“Let’s post Mr. Daniel a snow-ball through his letter box.” 
“Let’s write things in the snow.” 
“Let’s write, ‘Mr. Daniel looks like a spaniel’ all over his lawn.” 
Or we walked on the white shore. “Can the fishes see it’s snowing?” 

The silent one-clouded heavens drifted on to the sea. Now we were snow-blind travelers lost on the north hills, and vast dewlapped dogs, with flasks round their necks, ambled and shambled up to us, baying “Excelsior.” We returned home through the poor streets where only a few children fumbled with bare red fingers in the wheel-rutted snow and cat-called after us, their voices fading away, as we trudged uphill, into the cries of the dock birds and the hooting of ships out in the whirling bay. And then, at tea the recovered Uncles would be jolly; and the ice cake loomed in the center of the table like a marble grave. Auntie Hannah laced her tea with rum, because it was only once a year. 

Bring out the tall tales now that we told by the fire as the gaslight bubbled like a diver. Ghosts whooed like owls in the long nights when I dared not look over my shoulder; animals lurked in the cubbyhole under the stairs and the gas meter ticked. And I remember that we went singing carols once, when there wasn’t the shaving of a moon to light the flying streets. At the end of a long road was a drive that led to a large house, and we stumbled up the darkness of the drive that night, each one of us afraid, each one holding a stone in his hand in case, and all of us too brave to say a word. The wind through the trees made noises as of old and unpleasant and maybe webfooted men wheezing in caves. We reached the black bulk of the house. “What shall we give them? Hark the Herald?” 
“No,” Jack said, “Good King Wencelas. I’ll count three.” One, two three, and we began to sing, our voices high and seemingly distant in the snow-felted darkness round the house that was occupied by nobody we knew. We stood close together, near the dark door. Good King Wencelas looked out On the Feast of Stephen … And then a small, dry voice, like the voice of someone who has not spoken for a long time, joined our singing: a small, dry, eggshell voice from the other side of the door: a small dry voice through the keyhole. And when we stopped running we were outside our house; the front room was lovely; balloons floated under the hot-water-bottle-gulping gas; everything was good again and shone over the town. 
“Perhaps it was a ghost,” Jim said. 
“Perhaps it was trolls,” Dan said, who was always reading. 
“Let’s go in and see if there’s any jelly left,” Jack said. And we did that. 

Always on Christmas night there was music. An uncle played the fiddle, a cousin sang “Cherry Ripe,” and another uncle sang “Drake’s Drum.” It was very warm in the little house. Auntie Hannah, who had got on to the parsnip wine, sang a song about Bleeding Hearts and Death, and then another in which she said her heart was like a Bird’s Nest; and then everybody laughed again; and then I went to bed. Looking through my bedroom window, out into the moonlight and the unending smoke-colored snow, I could see the lights in the windows of all the other houses on our hill and hear the music rising from them up the long, steady falling night. I turned the gas down, I got into bed. I said some words to the close and holy darkness, and then I slept.

Dylan Thomas

*

Well, I am really so sorry we couldn’t have the Christmas Eve that we planned. I am so sorry to let you all down…..

My eldest daughter’s PICC line, the intravenous line that goes to her heart, has failed again and we are waiting for a last minute slot for surgery. She’s not excited for this, she has so much scar tissue that it’s really difficult to put the line in now and very painful. I’m hoping that the hospital can find a slot before Christmas, a cancellation, so we can get the surgery done…it would be far safer just in case she is ill.

In the meantime, I am getting ready for the oddest Christmas for a while….so few people, so quiet.

I have Christmas carols playing, the fire is lit in the kitchen and everywhere smells of Christmas spices and bleach…..it’s okay, it’s not a weird Welsh recipe, the children are cleaning the house while I one-handedly cook. My son is bringing an whole week’s worth of logs, sticks and peat blocks in for the fire and there is a fall-out of glitter everywhere. Present wrapping has been slow, with only one hand….Pete and I have had some stupid late nights while I scrumple things roughly into tissue paper (under the tree looks like a waste tip, with all the roughly wrapped presents).

I have some lovely chocolate biscuits and stuff for when we are all able to meet…this really is the finish to this year, hopefully 2021 will be a more normal year!

I have been counting my blessings, with such an odd year it’s easy to wallow in the bad stuff. There has been some lovely stuff has happened this year….I’ve started a degree, my husband Pete has a new job that keeps him at home, my eldest daughter lives to see another Christmas & is out of hospital, we have 2 more dogs added to the collection (Anya and Lenny the Liability….I can’t believe we’ve only had Lenny since January, he’s such a huge personality!), both this year’s nesting of swallows were successful, my children have lived and learned and done…and even possibly enjoyed lockdown.

I also feel I have shared blessings with you. We have shared ideas and celebrations and knowledge and letters. I have learned a huge amount about being Rastafari, a little bit about how to drum (still not very good at it 😊) and am still resisting having dreadlocks! I think I will go back to the quote I found a couple of weeks ago, (I know I’ve used it before) in celebration of this year and our group….

Lastly, a prayer and blessing for you…

May the Almighty Creator shower you all with His grace and bless each and everyone of you with a joyful, healthy, and prosperous year.

Of course, I will continue to pray for each every one of you, I will hope you have a peaceful Christmas, I will look forward to seeing you all again in the New Year and hope that we will be allowed to meet, that the lockdown will be over soon.

Take care!

Blessings,

Elizabeth