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May Tangen Christmas Letters, 1961-1974
Tangen Christmas Letter, 1966
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Dear Jo, John, Kirk, Becky and Natalie This is the TANGEN TRIBUNE of 1966 Coming to you now in time to wish you the best of new years and because I am thinking of you no matter what the season is. I thought I wouldn't bother you with the long annual report this year, but I want to write you and I want to hear all about you, too. This is the most economical (in time) way of doing it. Two years ago I was excited about taking a half-time assignment on my job to have time to work at novel-writing, last year I explained why I quit writing, this year I can report that - except for my very few sleepless nights, which I formerly welcomed as they gave me time to carry a story forward - I don't even miss it. Which, I think, proves that I am not a real artist: one's art is supposed to continue to absorb one's attention. or maybe I've had a sort of change-of-life in this engrossing business. One of C. S. Lewis' characters said when she was completely wrapped up in the book she was writing, "I am with book, as a woman is with child." Well, I'm beyond the book-bearing age - perhaps. Apparently, I still must have some youth though, and must stop to tell you here about that high spot of my year: In teaching church school and having as a class project the writing of a dialog on what we had learned about the Holy Spirit, I told the twelve-year-olds that I had newly found out that the love of God and of his people was agape, very different from the erotic love one saw in movie-type love stories, and stressed that this agape was love that could be experienced by people like twelve-year-olds and by old maids like me. "BUT YOU'RE NOT AN OLD MAID!" yelled Jim Thayer, so excited that he was jumpy. I stopped and beamed at him, warmed beyond measure. (With me, flattery can get you somewhere!) Being a dove absorbed my year. Iowa Citians began a Viet Nam Vigil just when I could hardly bear to think of the war situation, just when the word Peace seemed incongruous when it appeared on one or two Christmas cards. (Maybe they were leftovers from an old stock.) The Vigil met daily for two months, beginning in high hopes that the president could be persuaded to continue the moratorium on bombing, that the peace enjoys sent abroad during Christmas week would accomplish their mission. Almost daily we sent messages of encouragement to influential people. But you know the story: discouragement decimated the number, it became a weekly meeting during the spring months, dropped off for summer. Now in the fall its remnants are gathering to back a peace candidate for the Senate. I still have my own Sunday afternoon Vigil hour and read daily all that comes to my attention on Viet Nam. If a certain segment o four countrymen are enmeshed and forced to serve in the holocaust, I feel that the rest of us should do as much as civilians can do for them, for the Vietnamese, for the hope for a world free from this sickness of mankind. For the Vietnamese, I adopted late last fall
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Dear Jo, John, Kirk, Becky and Natalie This is the TANGEN TRIBUNE of 1966 Coming to you now in time to wish you the best of new years and because I am thinking of you no matter what the season is. I thought I wouldn't bother you with the long annual report this year, but I want to write you and I want to hear all about you, too. This is the most economical (in time) way of doing it. Two years ago I was excited about taking a half-time assignment on my job to have time to work at novel-writing, last year I explained why I quit writing, this year I can report that - except for my very few sleepless nights, which I formerly welcomed as they gave me time to carry a story forward - I don't even miss it. Which, I think, proves that I am not a real artist: one's art is supposed to continue to absorb one's attention. or maybe I've had a sort of change-of-life in this engrossing business. One of C. S. Lewis' characters said when she was completely wrapped up in the book she was writing, "I am with book, as a woman is with child." Well, I'm beyond the book-bearing age - perhaps. Apparently, I still must have some youth though, and must stop to tell you here about that high spot of my year: In teaching church school and having as a class project the writing of a dialog on what we had learned about the Holy Spirit, I told the twelve-year-olds that I had newly found out that the love of God and of his people was agape, very different from the erotic love one saw in movie-type love stories, and stressed that this agape was love that could be experienced by people like twelve-year-olds and by old maids like me. "BUT YOU'RE NOT AN OLD MAID!" yelled Jim Thayer, so excited that he was jumpy. I stopped and beamed at him, warmed beyond measure. (With me, flattery can get you somewhere!) Being a dove absorbed my year. Iowa Citians began a Viet Nam Vigil just when I could hardly bear to think of the war situation, just when the word Peace seemed incongruous when it appeared on one or two Christmas cards. (Maybe they were leftovers from an old stock.) The Vigil met daily for two months, beginning in high hopes that the president could be persuaded to continue the moratorium on bombing, that the peace enjoys sent abroad during Christmas week would accomplish their mission. Almost daily we sent messages of encouragement to influential people. But you know the story: discouragement decimated the number, it became a weekly meeting during the spring months, dropped off for summer. Now in the fall its remnants are gathering to back a peace candidate for the Senate. I still have my own Sunday afternoon Vigil hour and read daily all that comes to my attention on Viet Nam. If a certain segment o four countrymen are enmeshed and forced to serve in the holocaust, I feel that the rest of us should do as much as civilians can do for them, for the Vietnamese, for the hope for a world free from this sickness of mankind. For the Vietnamese, I adopted late last fall
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