Riggins Family Christmas 2009

Blessed Christmas from Linda, Mike, Laura and Dan Riggins

Linda and I completed fifty laps around the sun this year. We celebrated her birthday in Toledo; for mine, we rented a suite at a local resort. Before inserting your own joke here, please know that Toledo gave us a central location to meet our parents from Bloomington, Indiana and our children from college (Laura at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and Dan at Kenyon College in eastern Ohio). This fall the Riggins side (even brother Tim from England) enjoyed food, hiking and good, old-fashioned visiting at a state park lodge in northeast Indiana. Fifty is just a number. Most of the time. An injury caused partly by age cut my running season short. Linda battled injury too, though she did manage to win her age division in the National Cherry Festival race. At her trainer's urging she took up cycling, which gave me an excuse to resume touring, too. We have loved exploring our beautiful area from the saddle. We thank God for our health and gainful employment.

With our church cycling buds—we're 2nd and 3rd from left.

Northern Michigan “enjoys” the worst unemployment rate in the nation. Our church reflects this, making 2009 a difficult year. But we opened our second building in February. Last summer's mission trip took us to Pickford, Michigan. Linda's Children in Worship program has found its audience. I co-coached the church's Odyssey of the Mind team to a second consecutive World Finals, where we finished sixth. We confirmed sixteen young people this fall. After twelve years' labor in this vineyard we have found a home. We have friends in the church and meaningful work to do. It is good to feel useful even after you have sent your fledglings out of the nest.

One of us is cute and the other one stole my hair.

Fledgling One will graduate this spring from U of M. Laura's path through college took a few twists. She has met disappointment and administrative indifference with determination. We are proud of her. Come summer she will have enrolled in nursing prerequisites at a school in Indianapolis, where she hopes to get her credentials in a fourteen-month program. Laura was maid of honor in July for Kaitlyn Scott Turner. She spent a second summer at Camp PYOCA, where she supervised the staff with her usual—if in at least one case, clandestine—savoir faire. How she managed to hide 6'6” Sam, her significant friend (and subordinate on staff), remains something of a mystery. Her senior project, a Voice Major's Christmas, was “Laura in Every Way”: practical, sentimental and fun.

Laura with great friend Beth at Kaitlyn's wedding.

With greatest friend Lauren at Laura's senior project, “A Voice Major's Christmas”

Fledgling Two also served last summer in a Christian ministry. Dan worked near Eureka Springs, Arkansas, with brief stints in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. At both sites he connected visiting mission groups with local people for whom they painted and did light construction. He has entered his sophomore year at Kenyon College, where he has declared a biochemistry major. His name now appears on a paper for which he did research under the supervision of a professor. Fifteen months post-concussions, he ran varsity in cross country and will compete in indoor and outdoor track. He stone cold loves Kenyon. Through the wonders of Facebook we see pictures of him making gingerbread houses with his roommate, rolling in leaf piles on the gorgeous hilltop campus, hugging comely coeds, and nuzzling the cat that (no doubt illicitly) visited his suite.

Dan (right) with cat (center) and roommate (left).

Dan (right) with client (left) and flower in (right) ear.

We joke about aging. I lead worship each Tuesday at a local retirement community and as one of the ladies there puts it, “Old people can be funny, but being old is not funny.” At Thanksgiving the Riggins brothers divided up dad's tools. (That is, we divided up future ownership. Dad is not prepared to give up custody just yet.) It was a bittersweet experience. We swapped many a memory. We amicably decided where the future would find such treasures as our great, great grandfather's wooden toolbox and the planer Dad used to make our children's cribs. He seemed to enjoy the moment, with three of four sons present. But, c'mon: we were dividing up his tools! Dads are not supposed to relinquish their tools, are they?

Yes, they are. Dads and moms do not last forever. None of us do. But we can do the best with whatever tools God has given us. Last April Mom and Dad received the Lifetime Achievement Award in Volunteering from the City of Bloomington. They richly deserved it. They have given literally thousands of hours to Meals on Wheels, a thrift shop that benefits local folks in need, a store that funds supplies for teachers whose school districts no longer provide such luxuries as pencils and books, and a long list of other agencies plus their church. Kudos to my brother Dennis for nominating them. I can only hope that God may grant me the energy and compassion to follow their example.

Salute means, “Go so fast it plants my eyeballs against the back of my skull.”

Anne of Green Gables or the Pirates of Penzance? You decide.

Christmas is about giving. My parents have followed this example for decades. May each one of us receive the inspiration this Christmastide to follow their example, which is the example of Jesus. God bless us, every one!