But I digress. As old folks normally do. Someone surely must be waiting for the North Korea tie-in. Yes? Here it comes. Before December 22 is symbolic for me of the winter of humanity when all is bleak and dark and worse and worse. North Korea experiences this winter all year long, as does every other nation to some extent. Things are not right in the world. The snow of sin covers the planet. Cold hearts drive us to take cover. We are not free. And we think this condition will last forever. Things seem to get worse every day.

But there is hope. December 22 means hope . I see the snow, but in my mind I see spring birds flying over it. A bluebird has made its nest in my front-yard tree that has no leaves! The flowers rise, though my neighbors can't see them as they slush toward their car and begin to sweep off the night's offering.

Rotting and starving in a Hoeryong concentration camp or a Yoduk or a Chongjin, a man in whom Christ lives suddenly says, "Hey, this is not my final state. Winter shall not be always. Christ shall come. This regime shall fall. It will not always snow and be cold. Nothing but the newness of an eternal spring is headed my way. Don't you feel it, fellow-prisoner, do you know what I know? It's the 22nd! Christ is here and is coming!"