Mail Box Parish - Christmas 1999 Newsletter

	A New Millennium? I hate to spoil the Christmas season, but I must intervene against all the millennium hype, which will probably interfere with Christmas for a lot of folk. In fact, even by the present calendar, the millennium doesn’t end till December 31 of the year 2000. Moreover, the present calendar is at least five years off because of a mistake made by the monk Eusebius. In fact it is probably the year 2004 or 2005 now. The real reason to celebrate is not that Jesus was born 2000 years ago or even 2005 years ago, but that he was born at all, a sacrament of	. God’s Passionate and overwhelming love for us. We should celebrate that not every millennium or every century or ever year but every day. So happy millennium? Well, if that’s what you want. But Happy Christmas means a lot more. I read a poem the other day by a woman named Linda Pastan who suggests that in December the shivering world waits eagerly for the solstice. In my part of the world there is lot more waiting after the solstice. Still the days do get longer and we can anticipate more warmth, though only after many more months of shivering. Christmas, however, promises warmth in the cold, light in the darkness, hope in the fear, love which survives even death. Again it may be my reaction to all the hype, but I think that’s a lot more worth celebrating than the phony end of a phony millennium.
	Visit to the White House I went to the White House the other day and stayed the night. I admit that such a line is outrageous name dropping, but it’s true. The President has the good taste to like my novels and he invited me to visit him before he left office.	, I stayed in the so-called "Queens’ Bedroom" which is across the corridor from the Lincoln bedroom. Winston Churchill stayed there during the war. All of this is a lead up to a promise to Blackie Ryan fans that the Blackie series is anything but dead. Next summer we will have The Bishop and the El Train, which is about an elevated train in Chicago that disappears. Next there will appear, The Bishop Goes to Notre Dame, which is the one in Paris France and not South Bend Indiana. After that I’ll write a story called The Bishop in the White House. So Blackie lives! The reason for the delay is that Forge, which publishes my other novels, is now going to do the Blackie series too.
		Nuala Anne and Dermot — and Nellie and Fiona Nuala Anne and Dermot Michael will be back in March with their snow white wolfhound Fiona and their fey seven month old daughter Nelliecoyne (always spoken like it’s one word.) Then, Chuck O’Malley and his clan will return in the fall for A Christmas Wedding. And a year from March in Irish Love, the Coyne clan, now with a little boy who is described as like his father: big, handsome, and lazy. So I’m keeping busy with the stories, which continue to be great fun to write. Professor Allienne Becker has written a study of the stories which will appear some time next year. I don’t think that it will end the hostility which my stories cause in some people, mostly those who don’t read them but know what’s in them. But it might help a little.
	Furthermore! I’ll be out on the road in early December doing interviews about the second volume of my memoirs Furthermore! So you might see me, looking bleary eyed and dyspeptic, on morning television. Don’t blame me if I don’t smile much. As I have said of the book, if you want to know me, read my novels or my poems. If you want to know what’s happened to me (good and bad, but more good than bad), read Furthermore! Enough about me and my books.
		A Christmas Psalm May God bless you and keep you warm on cold winter nights, May God keep you cheerful on gray winter days, May Mary make you smile when you feel like frowning,
	May the baby Jesus remind you to be grateful for the gift of life, May the shepherds awaken your awe, May the Magi guard you on your way, May Brigid melt all the ice on your roads,
		May Patrick open your hearts to wonder and surprise May the angels ride on the wings of your planes And may joy fill your heart!
	Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Father Andrew Greeley!!!