Vaughan Family Update--Christmas 2022

Vaughan Family Update

Christmas 2022

As Christmas time draws near, we think of all the good folks with whom we'd love to share a few moments of catching up.  Because that won't happen in person for most of us, please allow this brief update to catch you up, at least a bit, on the happenings in the Vaughan tribe. 

Linda continues to thrive on teaching her GED students for Lexington School District 2.  She comes home with a story most every day and sometimes shares a Hallelujah moment with Dee when one of her students graduates or makes a significant gain toward it.  During two medically mysterious months of 2022, Linda was very sick, running a fever each day and feeling weak and tired.  The symptoms abated before we received a clear diagnosis, so we're calling her illness "Gone."  She loves teaching young adults at St. Andrews and cherishes every opportunity to be Nama to our five grands.  She and Dee celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary in July.  

Elizabeth Vaughan Davison stays very busy as a pastor's wife, mother of three, special education teacher, board member of a charter school, and graduate student.  She and her husband Josh live in Gaffney, SC (Linda's hometown) where Josh serves as Pastor of East Gaffney Baptist Church and is pursuing his Doctor of Ministry degree.  Their boys, Liam, Creighton, and Josiah, are now unbelievably 11, 9, and 7 years of age respectively.  All three are doing well in school and stay busy with church activities. 

Liam loves to draw and is very gracious in sharing his creations with family.  Creighton has taken a special interest in kick-boxing this year, which will prepare him well for attending Gaffney football games and family gatherings.  Josiah won his school's spelling bee, which means his Papa needs to keep him on speed dial.  

Josh and Jen Vaughan, our resident family physical therapists, live in Lexington, SC, not too far from Dee and Linda.  Their daughter, our only

 granddaughter, Juliana, turned three this year, attends preschool at St. Andrews, and has begun ballet and tumbling lessons.  She loves to sing and practice assertiveness.  Juliana received a baby brother this year.  James is 9 months old, and is presently pursuing a career in crawling, climbing, and falling.  He is an incredibly happy little boy and brings much joy to us all.  He, too, attends preschool at St. Andrews, so Papa Dee has numerous opportunities to sneak a peek during the day and often picks up Juliana and James from school and takes them to his office for a dose of Papa Time before their parents arrive to pick them up.  Josh has competed in CrossFit competitions this year and is presently training to run a marathon.  Having two preschoolers is probably a good start in learning to run all day.  

Andrew Vaughan is thriving in his work at Palmetto Citizens Federal Credit Union where he was promoted from a teller to a loan assistant.  Andrew enjoys his coworkers and customers and played a part in his branch's Halloween Star Wars theme. He makes a pretty convincing Anakin Skywalker.  He and Richard enjoy video games, park visits, and binging on Netflix series.  Andrew moved into a new apartment this year and has officially entered the adult world by asking for household items for his birthday and Christmas. Judged by this standard, his father never grew up. 

In November of this year, Dee reached the milestone of forty years of pastoring (and pestering) Baptist churches, the most recent eleven years at St. Andrews Baptist in Columbia.  Dee also became an associate with Pinnacle Leadership Associates, a clergy and church coaching and consulting ministry.  He published his fifth book this year, the most personal he's written, a journal of his battle with depression and how the story of Jacob wrestling through the night with a mysterious attacker became Dee's inspiration to persevere in the healing process until he, like Jacob, received a blessing from his adversary.  "Don't Let Go Before Dawn" is Dee's effort to encourage those struggling with depression and those who love them, and to help Christians and churches break free of the stigma too often attached to emotional illness.  Dee was the featured speaker for the 30th anniversary celebration of Helping Hands of Woodruff, SC, a benevolence ministry he helped launch while he lived and served in Woodruff.  Dee received his Medicare card this year, which means he needs to get serious about planning the next chapter of his life. 

So, what's new with you?  The Vaughans would love to hear from you and learn about your life adventures.  As Christmas comes, know we thank God for the blessing of wonderful friends like you.  

 

Will Jesus Come This Christmas?

I walked down a hospital hallway asking myself that question.  I knew the date was December 25.  I was the chaplain on call at Spartanburg Regional Medical Center.  I had actually volunteered to work Christmas Day.  Our supervisor had called his four residents to his office for the annual ritual of the Christmas work schedule lottery.  By random selection, one of us would spend Christmas Day at the hospital while the other three celebrated with family.  Just before the big drawing, I spoke up.  I was the only single person in the chaplain’s department and I wanted my coworkers to be with their spouses and children.  That was the noble side of my volunteering.  The not-so-noble side was that I didn’t want to face Christmas that year.  My dad had died just two months earlier, the sudden casualty of an aggressive inoperable brain tumor.  I thought keeping busy and focusing my energies on the needs of patients would be the least painful way I could pass the time.  So, there I was, walking down the hallway, speaking to every other employee I passed, and doubting that anything holy would happen that day.  

 
Christmas is a long, tough day for most everyone spending it in a hospital.  All but the sickest patients are discharged so they can benefit from the blessings of home.  Entire floors of the hospital are empty with those too sick to go home gathered into a few active units staffed by other lottery losers.  Between the grief inside me and the “left behind” feeling of those around me, my expectations for the day were pretty low.
What I failed to remember that day was Christmas has never happened in perfect places.  The holy family, a young woman tortured by the gossipy whispers of her fellow villagers, a young man leading his very expectant wife on a twenty mile journey to meet the taxation requirements of a cruel occupying army, a little town so overflowing with guests that no accommodations could be found for these weary travelers, the last choice refuge of a place meant for animals, the terror of giving birth without the help of a midwife, the support of family, or the simplest comforts of home.  Jesus certainly wasn’t born in a perfect time or place.  And, as I would learn that Christmas Day, he still comes into this world in less than perfect times and places. 

As I came to the end of that long day of ministry, I propped up my feet, leaned back in my chair, and realized I had an answer to my question.  Jesus, had, in fact, come that Christmas.   

He came—to the parents and grandparents of a beautiful but tragically stillborn child, a family that clung to the hope that because of Jesus, they would, one day, hold that child in heaven. 

He came—to a woman who wanted to go home, but knew that her circumstances were taking her, instead, to a nursing home; a woman who, amid all the unwanted changes in her life, rested in the truth that would not change, the Savior who is forever faithful, the love from which nothing could ever separate her.

He came—to a man who invited me to share the Christmas celebration his family had brought to him at the hospital because he couldn’t go home, and we knew he never would. It was a happy day; it was a good day because he knew that every day is a gift from God, every day a gift to share with those you love. 

He came—in the hospital cafeteria as my family gave up their Christmas feast to drive an hour to spend a little time with me feasting on hospital cuisine.  Though we all missed my dad at that meal, we also knew how blessed we were to be together.   

This Christmas may find you in a far from perfect place, a place that feels far away from the peace and joy of the season.  May you learn what I learned that Christmas long ago.  Jesus doesn’t wait for a perfect place to be born. The One born in a stable is ready to be born into your messy world and mine.  

The Gift We All Need

Christmas is coming to Mayberry and, with it, a strong spirit of good will.  Andy rationalizes a rubric for releasing his prisoners for the holiday, comparing it to students leaving school for Christmas vacation.  The jail is empty and hearts are full as they prepare for a Christmas Eve celebration, that is until Ben Weaver stomps into the courthouse with Sam Muggins, a Mayberry citizen Ben has caught making moonshine.  Ben’s not concerned that Sam might be drinking on Christmas Eve, just that he's missing out on the money he would make if Sam bought his alcohol from Ben’s store.  Ben stubbornly demands that Sam be locked up, even on Christmas Eve.  He promises to cause trouble for Andy if he doesn’t keep Sam in stir for the season.  

When Ben returns to check on Andy’s law enforcement, he finds that Andy has “arrested” Sam’s wife and children and brought them to the jail.  Andy has also sworn in several additional “deputies” to guard these dangerous outlaws.  Actually, of course, Andy was reuniting the Muggins family for Christmas and had moved the Christmas party to the courthouse. 

 Ben, of course, protests these developments, but can’t help but be attracted to the celebration, the good news, the happy gathering he finds in the courthouse.  He wants to join the festivities but doesn’t know how.  He only knows how to make an entrance by stirring up trouble.  The only part Ben knows how to play in life’s story is that of a Christmas scoffing Scrooge. 

 Though Ben has succeeded in putting Sam Muggins in jail, Ben is the one imprisoned, not by iron bars and locked doors, but by his loneliness.  He’s locked outside the season, unable to share its joy and love with others.  He sings the words of “Away in a Manger” looking in through the bars that lock him out of the joy of Christmas. 

 How many people learn a bad way to belong?  In one of my first ministry jobs, I had a coworker who stayed in trouble with his supervisors and fellow workers.  Our boss described him as a man who would run over people while driving the ambulance to the scene of an accident.  He didn’t want to be in trouble.  He just didn’t know any other way to get people’s attention.  He’d rather stay in hot water than be ignored. 

 Wise man that he is, Andy finally realizes what Ben is actually wanting to accomplish through all his cantankerous shenanigans and agrees to lock him up for his “crimes.”  Andy is going to find a way to make a place for Ben at the party.  He’s not going to leave him standing in the cold outside of Christmas.  I wonder how many lonely Bens get left in the alley. 

 Before Andy brings Ben to jail, he allows him to stop by his store to pick up some items he will need while serving his sentence.  When he opens his suitcase, it is, in fact, filled with gifts he wants to share gladly with everyone gathered in the courthouse.  Ben had a lot to give, but couldn’t until someone saw through his scowl and gave him a chance. 

 A chance.  That’s the gift Ben Weaver received that Christmas Eve.  It’s the gift every person needs and deserves.  Let’s put it at the top of our Christmas list.

 Footnote: This is the only holiday episode in the eight-year run of The Andy Griffith Show.  If you don’t believe in Christmas magic, watch Barney closely while he opens and reads his card from Hilda Mae.  It changes from one card to another, right before your eyes. 

Messages from Mayberry is my collection of spiritual life lessons drawn from my twenty-five favorite episodes of The Andy Griffith Show.  Click here to learn more about it.