This Christmas Eve morning the front page of my local paper, The Star-Ledger, proclaimed, "It's New Jersey's wonderful story." It turns out that the story on which the Christmas film, It's a Wonderful Life, is based was written by New Jerseyan Philip Van Doren Stern, and set in the small New Jersey town of Califon, in Hunterdon County. It's a wonderful state!
But this time of year we also miss our dear departed -- and we've just added to that list Joe Thomasberger, a wonderful minister, friend, leader, consoler, and husband to Becky Doggett. It seems to me the movie has a lesson for our mourning -- to appreciate all that happened because they were alive and to open our hearts to the satisfaction of a wonderful life. Can you imagine how much darker life would have been without each of them? Without my son Bobby, for example, I never would have appreciated the color Orange the way I do, and I say that having gown up in Orange, NJ. For those of us who are grieving this holiday, it's a lovely thing to imagine and to feel gratitude!
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