When I thought of returning to my former custom of sending a newsletter in place of the normative Christmass card, I was motivated by the notion that so much has happened since my last correspondence with most of you as to make the letter preferable. I'll use a chronological approach, to hit the high-lights in order:

12.67: Hospitalized for the holidays with pneumonia.

1.68: Notified by my then superior and the man who ordained me, Bishop Brady of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, that I ought either to leave my secular work and take up a full-time position with the Church, or to dissolve my formal relationship with the Church.

2.68: Bishop Stokes and Bishop Burgess of Massachusetts, being closer in touch with my actual work, felt that my endeavors in personnel work for a private insurance company were as much a part of the ministry to which I was ordained as was my typical work in the Diaconate. Therefore, Bishop Stokes accepted my Letters Dimissory from Fond du Lac, returning me formally to my material home in Massachusetts.

3.68: Father Collingwood, who has begun a creative, bold, and innovative ministry as Rector of the Church of the Advent in beacon Hill, accepted me onto the staff of the Advent, as a non-stipendary Deacon, with major pastoral responsibility for those whose situations are vocationally/ occupationally oriented. As part of the arrangements with the Parish, I took up residence in the Clergy House of the Advent in Brimmer Street, which is so situated as to give me a magnificent view of the whole of the Charles River Basin from my living-room, a twelve-minute walk across the Public Gardens to my insurance company, and five minutes in the other direction to my jail (more on that in April). To indicate something of the unusual patterns of ministry the Advent is experimenting with: one of the Priests spends half his time as a lay consultant to a mammoth municipal hospital in exploring means to the personalization of the institution; another spends most of his time as headmaster of a private, experimental, Church-related primary school; another is also non-stipendary, earning his living as an investment counselor for a brokerage firm. Only two of our priests are formally full-time with the internal work of the parish.

4.68: In a further broadening of my ministry, I began volunteer work under newly- appointed High Sheriff Sears of Suffolk County in rehabilitation of the 240 male inmates of our County Jail. Although one of our Nuns has been doing an heroic work with the thirty female inmates for several years, we started our work with the men from ground zero. Just a listing of our various good fortunes at the Jail should make evident how potently we are meeting our Lord in prison: (all of the following volunteered, free of charge to the County) 20 Nuns (Roman Catholic) teaching 50 men in classroom instruction, in an area formerly used for bread-and-water solitary confinement; ten tutors instructing inmates on a face-to-face basis; a library of more than 4000 volumes (many given by the employees of my insurance company); several seminarians of all denominations guiding and counseling and listening to the men; two psychiatrists to work with the critically uptight inmates and in training the volunteers; new melmac dinnerware to replace battered tinware; an ongoing program with Alcoholics Anonymous; frequent movies and entertainment; showers daily rather than weekly; job counseling, preparation, and referral; correspondence courses, etc., etc. I don't deny that I have been uniquely fortunate to become involved in such an exciting work.

6.68: Promoted by my insurance company to Personnel Director, with the scope of my duties expanded somewhat to involvement in personnel programs/ policies/ procedures for our people.

7.68: Began an exciting temporary assignment as training coordinator for the area United Fund campaign business firm solicitations. as so may of my people are assisted by our Fund's myriad agencies, I had no difficulty in projecting enthusiasm to the hundreds of solicitors I was able to work with.

8.68: My insurance company having promoted me, they sent me to New York for an American Management Association seminar on personnel management (that I might learn what I had become). I was delighted to find, at the end of the conference, that the substance of a personnel director's work - if not his formal terminology - is close to that of the committed Christian: the glorification of the Creator in his creation through assisting his creatures.

11.68: Sheriff Sears appointed me Protestant Chaplain of the Jail, thereby formalizing my relationship with the institution and facilitating the transition from Sheriff Sears to the administration of his successor at the New Year.

12.68: I'm writing this letter while recovering from the latest fad: the Hong Kong virus. try to imagine the impossible: I've been unable to speak for a few days!

I trust that this chronicle of my past year will cry out as forcefully to my lectors as it does to me the glory of the Lord, his goodness to us in his marvelous acts and in his co-operating creatures and beneficiaries. I do not deny the grief, toil, and sweat between the lines of the above, but I close with the proclamation that we are fortunate to be celebrating the Advent of our King, our Emmanu-El.

Thanks be to God, and may He bless your Year.