Laurel Elisabeth Stevens

As our van drove up to the unofficial refugee camp, a group of children were already coming over to greet us.  “Hello!”  They practiced their new English with bright vowels.  “Nice to meet you!”    It was a beautiful spring day, and I was over the worst of the jet lag after traveling from Texas to Lebanon with a group of six others from my church.  On day four of our trip we had visited with Christians who were stretching themselves every day to serve refugees from their old enemy of Syria.  Now it was our turn to visit a camp and see it with our own eyes.  Fadil*, our guide for the morning, told us that we were invited by Nadia to visit her tent and talk with her.  The tent was one of hundreds and hundreds nestled close together just on the edge of town.  They were made of wood and covered with plastic, some covered with old billboard material—the walls of homes made from out-of-date advertising.  We took off our shoes an...

Alvin, Ralph and Virginia, circa 1946 We visited Grandma Virginia at the end of December on our road trip home from Michigan. She was asleep when we arrived around 4 in the afternoon--John, Elisabeth, Henry and I.  I was determined to see her though, so I decided to wake her up.  She sleeps plenty, I told myself.  I sat on the bed and said gently, "Hi Grandma, it's Laurel."  No response--she was sleeping soundly. I told John and the kids to go down the hall and enjoy a card game, and I sat with my grandma. I tried for a while to wake her up by gently rubbing her back and saying her name, but then that seemed like that was just not going to work . . . so I started singing.  "O come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant . . ." it was still Christmas after all.  During the third verse she opened her eyes and turned her head toward me with a big smile. "That was beautiful!  When's the concert?" "Grandma that was the concert!" ...

I began Advent with many ideas of how we, as a family, would prepare for Christ’s coming, and some of them we carried through with.  Some of them we didn’t.  It was halfway through week 2 of Advent that I made an Advent wreath and we began lighting candles, but I never did get the traditional purple candles, and I’m finding that white looks rather like Easter.  The stories for the Jesse tree are read about every other day, and thoughts of, “Have I gotten all the right gifts?” too often clutter my mind in unproductive wanderings. There have been surprises though.  In working on the two previous posts I listened to many renditions of anthems, once again immersing myself in the story of the lyrics as well as the beauty of the music.  Elisabeth’s piano playing continues to delight me, and my mom has been playing as well—“What Child is This” and “Lo, How a Rose.”  Henry was in his room singing “O Holy Night” making up words to the parts he didn't know....

A week ago a new nephew entered our family.  His name is Charlie and he came one week early.  Nevertheless, it was a long wait.  After my sister-in-law had been in labor for nearly ten hours, the action pretty much stopped.  My brother texted me: “We’re kind of bored.”  I chuckled, and hoped he didn’t think I was condescending when I texted back, “Sleep now while you can.”  Waiting is hard. About ten years ago John and I were trying to sell a house and buy one in The Woodlands and I was always up and down with the good news-bad news of having a house on the market.  My dear husband tried to lighten my mood by quoting a line from The Simpsons one night: “Now we play the waiting game!” and answering himself with Homer’s line, “Awww, I wanna play Hungry, Hungry Hippos.”  So on a whim one night in a hotel we bought the game and probably caused no little annoyance to our neighbors as we drank glasses of wine and played that crazy noisy game....

Elisabeth has been working on a piano arrangement of O Come, O Come, Emmanuel , a hymn dating back to the 12th or 13th century as a Latin plain chant.  Many renditions hearken back to monks chanting in hallowed halls, “Veni, Veni Emmanuel,” but the Baroque version Elisabeth plays is no less mysterious and wondrous to me.   In my childhood though, I became so familiar with the first verse that I found it quite boring and a bit confusing.  I liked the chorus though, because I got to sing it loud and high.   In high school, our choir director asked us every year to memorize five verses of that hymn for a processional, and every year we failed.  Indeed I felt quite guilty that I could not hold up my end of the assignment.  I don’t recall trying very hard to learn them, but I do recall the dread in my stomach when it became apparent to Mr. Moses that we had failed him again.   Twenty-plus years later I love the story these verses tell--of Israel ens...

It was Christmas Eve.   We sat in semi-darkness in the living room in my grandparents’ house on Hunter’s Run, all of us sitting in chairs and on the soft blue carpet, more or less in a circle: Grandmother, Granddad, Dad, Mom, Tim, Josh, Nathaniel and me.   The only lights were those from the Christmas tree.   We had come from church and our fingers and noses were still chilled from the brisk Pennsylvania air.   The exhilaration of singing carols with a brass ensemble coursed through me, but I was content to be home now, waiting.   I was fourteen, but our tradition of opening one present on Christmas Eve and saving the rest until Christmas morning still had me grinning with anticipation.   But before we could do that Dad began talking to us in a thoughtful voice, asking us if we knew the word “incarnation.”  Sure, I knew it.  It was one of those words we tossed about in church.  Salvation, incarnation, revelation . . .I didn’t need to r...

Sometimes people ask if I grew up overseas, since my parents have been living in exotic places off and on for the past eleven years, and I point out regretfully that they started taking all the wonderful overseas assignments after they were empty nesters.  While I think it would have been great to experience Vietnam, Poland and London as an American high schooler, I’m quite pleased and privileged to be able to enjoy these places as an adult with children of my own.   So in July, Elisabeth, Henry and I traveled to London for our second visit.  The first week of our two week trip was spent on the Isle of Wight, along with my parents, my brother Josh and his children Timothy and Charlotte. (Sadly, work obligations kept John in the U.S.) The Isle of Wight is off the southern coast of England, so from London we took a train, then a ferry, a train, and then a taxi.  Shortly after arrival at our country hotel, we enjoyed a cup of tea on the enclosed terrace ov...