I’ll Be Home for Christmas

“No distance of space or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of those who are thoroughly persuaded of each other’s worth.” – Robert Southey

Throughout the holidays, during travels to see family and friends, and when we are missing people whom we can’t be with, I often think of this quote from Southey – it’s so true.

So to my old college roomate, my fellow “partner in crime” and study companion for comps at school, my best friends from junior high and church youth group who I still email, to close friends who used to live down the street or at least right over by the coffee shop where we met for breakfast, to family who are spread around the country, to churches I used to worship in and with, to co-workers on both coasts and in between, to mentors and pastors, to communities and their inhabitants that taught me and stretched me, to academic and professional colleagues who I bonded with over intense and meaningful common goals, to all my favorite people at 5101, to professors who taught more then their subject matter, to my old choir director, to people in Cradock and Soweto and Durban, to people who are now gone and can only be remembered – to all those people who have been part of making me, me – Merry Christmas, and I miss you, and thank you.