In our breakneck-speed society, we have invented marvelous tools to make sure we are going the right direction. We have evolved eons past the astrolabe and the North Star. Yet, with all this concern about directions in our physical world, we don’t seem so concerned about our spiritual direction.

Some people are happy to have the old year behind them and to have the start of a new one. Some people are happy for the first day of the new year and then, as one woman said, “It’s back to the same old grind.” I can relate.

Happy New Year! Throw the confetti. Blow the whistles. Kiss your sweetheart. The old man of 2025 hobbles out the door and the new infant year leaps in with vigor and hope.

It’s that time of year in the Faber household where the calendar turned over to November and Mrs. Faber and the three girls decided that it’s time for Christmas.

In children’s Christmas movies, Santa streaks through the air in a magical sleigh drawn by reindeer, leaving a spray of twinkling stars in his wake.

Winter Sundays after church often found our family gathered around the ice cream bucket, cranking fresh cream into a tradition that blended labor, laughter and lasting joy.

For many of us, Christmas looks a little different than it does in a Hallmark movie. The snow doesn’t fall just right, the wind bites harder than we’d like, and chores don’t take a holiday.

Outside my window, the world is a glorious panorama of color. The leaves flutter red, yellow and orange in the breeze.

It is difficult to remember what it was like to lie in my sleeping bag in my front yard on a warm summer’s night and gaze up into the night sky where billions of twinkling dancing stars suspended in the velvet blackness light up the glory of the heavens.

It was a dreary April day this past spring in western Wisconsin. I spent the afternoon driving back from a cattle event, heading right to another community commitment I had that evening. That’s where I got the dreaded text, “Looks like 048 is calving.”