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May Tangen Christmas Letters, 1975-1982

Tangen Tribune Christmas Greetings to the Stanleys Page 1

May's Tangen tribune 

brings 
Greetings to the Stanleys 1975-1976

I'M NOW 70 YEARS OLD AND IN THE HOME stretch, at a turning point of my life since I am now fully retired, and at a good point to TAKE STOCK. If this Tribune doesn't discuss events as usual, so be it : because it is designed to discuss motivations instead. 
   Only that action or course that is motivated by LOVE is justifiable, I learned as I taught Sunday School at Asbury Church in my early years here in Holly Springs. But the love must not be narrow, as sexual love, erotic love, love of family or country for in that narrow love we love " because ...."
   No, it must be the love called agape, in which one loves " in spite of ...." . "Utterly uncalculating love shown by the Samaritan. " says J.A.T Robinson in " Difference in Being Christian Today", a copy of which I bought in St. George's Chapel in Windsor Castle this summer. 
    Whatever action or course is motivated by love bears some fruit of God's Spirit, which Paul describes as " Love, joy. peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control."
   Which I have said before, you say, and I don't apologize because my motivation to do God's will for me is not new. YET IT IS NEW, for love is always fresh, always new and therefore one who partakes is always being renewed. 

I AM SIMPLIFYING MY LIFE-STYLE, of which I'll say more later. I am sure that it is in keeping with Christian motivation -- that I love -- that I chose to continue to live in Holly Springs, and I can think of no other place on earth that I'd rather have than the place I chose for a retirement home, Rankin Circle, and apartment complex where low-income people, and others who pay according to their own income, live. For Christ lived among the poor, and I feel that it is his will for me also. 

MR MAIN CONCERN IS THAT I BE A GOOD NEIGHBOR, a friend, not a reformer, though I feel that the poor need a change of life-style, too, a remotivation that they may be poor only moneywise. 
    But my life among them is not successful -- I do much unlovingly, I do not give of myself, I am very lazy I do not communicate. But I work on myself, hoping for daily renewal. My immediate neighbors are in this house of retired people, and the Rankin Circle children for whom I have open house every weekday from 4 to 5 p.m. The retired people are angry with the children -- and I am too -- as they are noisy, they smear the white stair walls with finger prints, they come in with mud on their shoes, they wash the bottles they bring me for recycling in the mud puddles and come in dripping, and they interrupt me continually when I read to them.
   But a Lutheran Student adviser at Moorhead told us that Jesus said, " Well done, thou good and faithful servant", not " thou good and successful servant." I can therefore dare to live unsuccessfully, knowing that being a good neighbor, hoping to live lovingly, is yet doing God's will. 
   August 4, 1975, is the 57th anniversary of Clara's and my confirmation. One part of the Catechism stands out as a beacon for behavior, and that is the explanation of the Commandment. " Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor", which if I remember the words right goes, " We should fear and love God so as not to slander or defame our neighbor, but excuse him, speak well of him and put the best construction on all that he does. " These words, blessed by God, are to me a good guard against wrong talk and thinking. 

CHANGE IN LIFE-STYLE IS OF PARAMOUNT IMPORTANCE, I learned at the Southern Conference of World Affairs that I've been attending each spring with Clarice Campbell (head of the history department at Rust College and of Asbury's Commission of Social Concerns and from whom I get much direction for doing worthwhile things). If inflation leaves you without enough money for your needs, " have fewer needs," advises William Sloane Coffin in one of the papers Clarice gave me to read. 

Consequently , I found that half the things we buy at the grocery store are not needs.

Saving...

May's Tangen tribune brings Greetings to the Stanleys 1975-1976 I'M NOW 70 YEARS OLD AND IN THE HOME stretch, at a turning point of my life since I am now fully retired, and at a good point to TAKE STOCK. If this Tribune doesn't discuss events as usual, so be it : because it is designed to discuss motivations instead. Only that action or course that is motivated by LOVE is justifiable, I learned as I taught Sunday School at Asbury Church in my early years here in Holly Springs. But the love must not be narrow, as sexual love, erotic love, love of family or country for in that narrow love we love " because ...." No, it must be the love called agape, in which one loves " in spite of ...." . "Utterly uncalculating love shown by the Samaritan. " says J.A.T Robinson in " Difference in Being Christian Today", a copy of which I bought in St. George's Chapel in Windsor Castle this summer. Whatever action or course is motivated by love bears some fruit of God's Spirit, which Paul describes as " Love, joy. peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control." Which I have said before, you say, and I don't apologize because my motivation to do God's will for me is not new. YET IT IS NEW, for love is always fresh, always new and therefore one who partakes is always being renewed. I AM SIMPLIFYING MY LIFE-STYLE, of which I'll say more later. I am sure that it is in keeping with Christian motivation -- that I love -- that I chose to continue to live in Holly Springs, and I can think of no other place on earth that I'd rather have than the place I chose for a retirement home, Rankin Circle, and apartment complex where low-income people, and others who pay according to their own income, live. For Christ lived among the poor, and I feel that it is his will for me also. MR MAIN CONCERN IS THAT I BE A GOOD NEIGHBOR, a friend, not a reformer, though I feel that the poor need a change of life-style, too, a remotivation that they may be poor only moneywise. But my life among them is not successful -- I do much unlovingly, I do not give of myself, I am very lazy I do not communicate. But I work on myself, hoping for daily renewal. My immediate neighbors are in this house of retired people, and the Rankin Circle children for whom I have open house every weekday from 4 to 5 p.m. The retired people are angry with the children -- and I am too -- as they are noisy, they smear the white stair walls with finger prints, they come in with mud on their shoes, they wash the bottles they bring me for recycling in the mud puddles and come in dripping, and they interrupt me continually when I read to them. But a Lutheran Student adviser at Moorhead told us that Jesus said, " Well done, thou good and faithful servant", not " thou good and successful servant." I can therefore dare to live unsuccessfully, knowing that being a good neighbor, hoping to live lovingly, is yet doing God's will. August 4, 1975, is the 57th anniversary of Clara's and my confirmation. One part of the Catechism stands out as a beacon for behavior, and that is the explanation of the Commandment. " Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor", which if I remember the words right goes, " We should fear and love God so as not to slander or defame our neighbor, but excuse him, speak well of him and put the best construction on all that he does. " These words, blessed by God, are to me a good guard against wrong talk and thinking. CHANGE IN LIFE-STYLE IS OF PARAMOUNT IMPORTANCE, I learned at the Southern Conference of World Affairs that I've been attending each spring with Clarice Campbell (head of the history department at Rust College and of Asbury's Commission of Social Concerns and from whom I get much direction for doing worthwhile things). If inflation leaves you without enough money for your needs, " have fewer needs," advises William Sloane Coffin in one of the papers Clarice gave me to read. Consequently , I found that half the things we buy at the grocery store are not needs.