East-West Parkway Opening Top Story of 2013

It was a busy year full of mostly good news of Anderson County in 2013. The following are some of the most important events of the year. 

East-West Parkway opens after almost five years. It was worth the wait. Traffic patterns in Anderson have vastly improved as a result of the road connecting S.C. 81 North and Clemson Boulevard. 

Record Rainfalls fill Hartwell Lake to well above full pool. A cool, wet summer - including one stretch of 40 consecutive days of precipitation - brought a record rainfall of more than 52 inches of rain, almost 10 inches above the 44.21 average for the area.

Economic development helps bring Anderson jobless rate below 6 percent. Anderson County’s department of economic development led by Burriss Nelson and Anderson County Administrator Rusty Burns, brought in hundreds of jobs and are promising an even better picture for 2014. 

Anderson County Council loses all accounts on appeal of rulings in the case against former Administrator Joey Preston, and yet voted 4-3 to appeal yet again. Current estimates indicate the cost of the legal action against Preston has already exceeded $3 million. 

Three new superintendents take over in Anderson County school districts: Tom Wilson, District 5; Richard Rosenberger District 2; and David Havird, District 1. Wilson and Rosenberger are graduates of T.L. Hanna and Havird is a long-time employee of District 1. 

City opens Lindley Park, and the downtown Carolina Wren Park. A totally re-landscaped Linley Park, featuring a new walking track, opened in the summer, but the parking part of the project is still in limbo. The city also opened a great space downtown in Carolina Wren Park. If only DHEC had not required swimming-pool quality water for the falls and fountains and the silly “No Lifeguard on Duty” signs for a place where the water never exceeds 1/8 of an inch in depth. The venue should provide lots of accessible space for downtown events, including the weekly block parties. 

City of Anderson Christmas Parade cancelled for first time in history due to rain. The city of Anderson cancelled the parade and said it was impossible to reschedule. Meanwhile a small group put together a alternate parade on balloon hill at the Anderson County Civic Center, which was well-attended and which may or may not become an annual event. 

Coming Tuesday: Predictions for 2014.

Legal Notes: Is Going to Trial Worth the Risk?

By M. J. Goodwin/Founding Attorney, Goodwin & Pruette, Attorneys at Law, LLC 

Twenty-two years in South Carolina’s Family Courts has taught me many things.  I’ve learned more than just the application of the academic law taught in Law School.  I have also learned about human nature and how it interacts in the legal environment.  A break-up of a family is sad.  Divorces are sad; custody cases even sadder.  If the issues between the parties can be resolved by agreement, that is by far the best route.  Because a trial goes beyond sad.  A trial is akin to a war.  A trial, while just another day in the life of a lawyer, can be accurately called a tragedy for the parties involved.  

A trial is a risk.  There is the obvious risk of losing.  A party may come out significantly worse that he or she would have been via a compromise resolution.  Judges often view cases as an “all or nothing” proposition.  But there are other, more insidious aspects of trials that make them undesirable.

Trials consist of lawyers calling witnesses.  So many times I have had persons say “put me on the stand!” That person is eager to testify, to tell his or her story.  That person has no real concept of what testifying means.  It is so much more than just answering questions and giving evidence favorable to the “side” one supports.   People forget that the litigants, if they have children, are still a family long after the custody trial is over.  That is important.  In that respect, Family Court is unlike criminal court or civil court.  One does not attend weddings with the guy that ran the red light and one’s car. One can expect to see the father or mother of one’s child from time to time.  Many of those events will be for things important to the child:  school functions, football games, dance recitals, graduations, weddings, births of grandchildren, grandchildren’s functions.  Yes, life goes on.  Everything a witness says is recorded for posterity.  Even transcribed if one choses to buy the transcript.  So all those hateful, possibly slanted things that are said during trial are out there.  They can never be “unsaid.”  Emotional fractures that may have healed may be rendered permanent as the result of a trial.  And future events may be much more tense than they need to be due to the testimony elicited at trial.

A trial airs everyone’s dirty secrets, to everyone in the litigants’ lives.  This is also a concept not widely considered before litigants trudge headlong into a trial.  The dirty secrets don’t stay in the Courtroom.  They come out.  This happens very quickly.  A supporting witness, perhaps a neighbor or church member, is asked “Are you aware that Mr. Jones has a drinking problem?” or “Are you aware that Mrs. Jones gave Mr. Jones a sexually transmitted disease?”  The very nature of the question gives away much private information.  But for trial, many painful private secrets would have remained private.  These secrets then make their way around the church, the school, the sports teams, the neighborhood, etc.   

So why go to trial?  Sometimes there are very good reasons to go to trial.  Sometimes it is absolutely necessary.  If there is no room for compromise, go to trial.  If things are so bad that it is absolutely better for a stranger (the Family Court Judge), with limited information, to make the decisions regarding the most intimate aspects of one’s life, go to trial.  Otherwise, attempt to compromise and settle the case. 

After 22 years, if I have all the relevant information, I have found that I can pretty accurately predict the outcome of most cases for my clients.  That is not to say that I am always correct or that I get every detail exactly as the Judge ultimately orders it, but I can get in the ballpark.  There are few new frontiers in Family Court.  Some clients choose to listen, others do not.  That is a personal decision each client must make.  But it is important for clients to leave their emotions out of any decision making in Family Court.  And that is a tall order. Not everyone can do it and those folks will always have trials.

When seeking an attorney, be sure to inquire about the attorney’s ability to settle cases and reach beneficial compromises, as well as the attorney’s trial experience.  Both are important for competent representation in Family Court.

M. J. Goodwin, is a partner in Goodwin & Pruette, Attorneys at Law, LLC, which is located at 113 North Main Street, Anderson, SC 29621.  864-375-0909.  The information in this column is not intended as a substitute for specific legal advice for any given situation.  Only clients who have hired M. J. Goodwin, Attorney at Law, LLC, are receiving actual legal advice that pertains to their particular situation.  If you would like to hire M. J. Goodwin, Attorney at Law, LLC to represent you in your family, criminal or civil court action, please call 864-375-0909.

Sue Monk Kidd's New Book Chosen for Oprah's Club

Here’s something to pick up during early January sales: Oprah Winfrey’s new book club pick.

Winfrey has chosen Anderson's own Sue Monk Kidd’s “The Invention of Wings,” coming out Jan. 7. An interview with Kidd appears in the Dec. 17 edition of O: The Oprah Magazine, and a conversation with Kidd will air next year at a date to be determined on the talk-show host’s “Super Soul Sunday” on OWN (the Oprah Winfrey Network).

Kidd’s novel, a 19th-century narrative featuring real and fictional characters, weaves together the stories of a slave girl and a slave owner’s daughter. Like Kidd’s million-selling “The Secret Life of Bees,” the book is set in South Carolina, where the 65-year-old author lived for many years.

“The moment I finished ‘The Invention of Wings,’ I knew this had to be the next book club selection,” Winfrey said in a statement. “These strong female characters represent the women that have shaped our history and, through Sue’s imaginative storytelling, give us a new perspective on slavery, injustice and the search for freedom.”

Winfrey founded her book club in 1996 and quickly established herself as a reliable hit maker, whether choosing debut works such as Lalita Tademy’s “Cane River” or old favorites such as John Steinbeck’s “East of Eden.” She suspended her club in 2011 after ending her syndicated program, but relaunched it in 2012 as Oprah’s Book Club 2.0, with a stronger emphasis on digital technology.

“The Invention of Wings” is Winfrey’s third choice for the 2.0 club, and her first since selecting Ayana Mathis’ “The Twelve Tribes of Hattie” almost a year ago. She had been expected to make picks more frequently, but she also seeks the “perfect fit,” according to the books editor for O, Leigh Haber.

With a best-seller almost guaranteed, publisher Viking has announced a print run of 320,000 copies. “The Invention of Wings” is Kidd’s first novel since “The Mermaid Chair” was released in 2009, when the digital market was still tiny. At least half of total sales for popular novels often come through the e-book edition.

Flu Cases on the Rise in S.C.

At least six people in South Carolina have died of the flu so far this season.

The Greenville News reports flu cases began rising dramatically the week before Christmas.

The state Department of Health and Environmental Control says the first case in South Carolina was reported in October. The agency says 401 people as of Dec. 21 had been hospitalized for the flu. The six deaths occurred in Berkeley, Charleston, Dorchester and Richland counties.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the most prevalent strain this season is the H1N1 virus, which hits younger people hardest.

The flu season runs from October through March in South Carolina. DHEC says the flu killed 46 South Carolinians and hospitalized 1,721 between Sept. 30, 2012, and Sept. 21, 2013.

8 in S.C. House May not Seek Re-Election

At least eight S.C. House lawmakers – five Republicans and two Democrats – may not seek re-election in 2014, sending Republican and Democratic leaders searching for their replacements.

Instead of seeking re-election, most of those House members are considering races for other offices, largely focusing on two races – for superintendent of education and lieutenant governor.

State Reps. Mike Anthony and Bakari Sellers, both Democrats, have said they will run for state superintendent of education and lieutenant governor, respectively.

Sellers’ seat is in heavily Democratic Bamberg County. But Anthony’s Union County district is in Republican territory and figures to be hotly contested. Former state Rep. David Tribble, who was drawn out of his House district during the 2010 redistricting, says he will run for Anthony’s seat as a Republican.

“Union County had a Republican representative before Mike Anthony, and it has gone Republican in the last two presidential elections,” Tribble said. “I think Union County would be open to somebody that comes over there and makes a case for state government that has to do with conservative values.”

Two Republican representatives, Andy Patrick and Shannon Erickson, both of Beaufort County, also are considering running for other offices, potentially opening up their seats in the 124-member House. Both may run for education superintendent after GOP incumbent Mick Zais has said he will not seek a second term.

If Lt. Gov. Glenn McConnell decides not to run, state Rep. Ralph Norman, R-York, is considering a bid to succeed the Charleston Republican. York County Sheriff Bruce Bryant could run as a Republican to replace Norman in the House.

Two longtime Republican lawmakers – Reps. Roland Smith of Aiken and B.R. Skelton of Pickens – likely will retire.

Full Story Here  

S.C. Student Loan Debts Rising

Danny Lloyd just finished his first semester at the University of South Carolina, but the Columbia native already knows he will get more than a mechanical engineering degree when he graduates.

Lloyd expects to have roughly $20,000 in tuition debt — a prospect that provides him a strong incentive to find work in the state’s growing aerospace industry: “It’s going to weigh over my head so I better get a good job so I can pay this back.”

The average debt for S.C. college graduates was $27,416 in 2012, according to an recent analysis of federal data compiled for the Institute for College Access & Success, a California-based research group.

That is almost $2,000 less than the national average. Still, some of the other tuition-debt data is sobering for S.C. students seeking diplomas.

•  Since 2008, the college debt of S.C. graduates has grown at a faster pace than the national average. Part of the reason? South Carolina has the most expensive average tuition for public colleges in the Southeast and ranked among the 10 costliest in the nation, according to a survey of 2011-12 data by the U.S. Department of Education.

•  Debt at private four-year S.C. schools was just $1,600 higher than at public colleges. But a larger chunk of private school graduates, 66 percent, left with debt than public college students, 53 percent, the institute found.

•  The typical Palmetto State grad carried $6,300 more in debt after getting a diploma last year than their 2008 counterparts. Debt is growing faster than the rate of inflation because tuition has increased at a faster pace than the average cost of all goods and services.

• More than half of S.C. graduates — 55 percent — had debt after getting their diploma. But that’s below the national average of 71 percent.

• Loan default rates grew at most S.C. schools between 2010 and 2011, according to an analysis of federal data Institute for College Access & Success.

S.C. schools say they work to educate students about debt while they are on campus. Talk about tuition loans goes along with information about credit cards at student orientations.

Full Story Here 

Mass., Vt. Suspend Payments to Healthcare.gov Contractor

Massachusetts and Vermont have suspended payments to CGI Group, the same contractor behind Healthcare.gov. A policy expert argues that CGI's failures are due to the complexity of the Affordable Care Act, also known as "Obamacare."

"The problem is the complexity of the laws," Ed Haislmaier, senior research fellow for Health Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation, told The Christian Post in an interview Friday. Haislmaier argued that Obamacare required excessive regulation for the subsidies, causing the famous Healthcare.gov backup and the state backups as well.

The scholar turned to Massachusetts as a prime example. "Massachusetts has been running a similar program for subsidizing people to buy coverage since 2007," and this program was "politically in sync with the administration." Nevertheless, the state's exchange allegedly experiences so many problems that it has decided to publicly reprimand CGI, withdrawing money from the company.

Haislmaier explained that under Obamacare, determining the right subsidy for each applicant required a massive amount of information. The process first requires documents from the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Homeland Security, and "various federal sites that don't work together." Then, the system has to calculate whether or not that person falls inside the poverty level, which in turn depends on criteria like the amount of people in the household.

Furthermore, those who already receive employer coverage – so long as that coverage meets the law's standards – cannot apply for a subsidy, even if their income is low enough to do so.

"Even the best IT vendor in the world is probably going to take a lot more work than has been put into this, to fix it," Haislmaier argued.

Full Story Here

U.S. States Await Ruling on Use of Drones

The Raptr hovers stubbornly at an altitude of about 100 feet despite a lashing Oklahoma wind, its 73-inch rotor blades whirring like a swarm of buzzing bees. Then handler Curtis Sprague disconnects the remote device that he is using to control the mini-helicopter, leaving the pilotless aircraft to move entirely under its own steam – a flying robot let loose in the clear blue sky. The unmanned plane does a pirouette, then flies back to the spot from which it was launched. It lowers itself slowly to the runway, landing with a slight shudder before switching itself off.

Equipped with a military-grade autopilot that can make up to 500 flight corrections per second even as it carries out fully-autonomous surveillance of an area with a 10-mile radius, the Raptr is one of a new generation of drones now poised to burst onto the civilian scene. The helicopter’s ability to transmit real-time video and thermal imaging over a wide area has already attracted interest from as far afield as South Africa, where game keepers want to use it to thwart rhino poachers. (Drones are also being eyed as a means of carrying snake antivenom to the Australian outback.)

In the US, a diverse group of interests have their eyes on the technology – fire fighters combatting wild fires, police departments tracking fugitives, farmers on the watch for diseased or parched crops, TV crews filming breaking news.

Public debate about drones continues to be dominated by the controversy around the Obama administration’s ongoing policy of targetted killings. Attention has focused on the weaponised aircraft, such as the Global Hawk and the Predator, that have been deployed in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and other conflict spots.

But all that is about to change. Though Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ boast on 60 Minutes that one day his company will drop packages on its customers’ doorsteps using unmanned “octocopters” was more than a little futuristic, given the hurdles to flying drones in densely populated urban areas, it’s likely only a matter of time before drones really do make their entry into civilian life.

A 'road map' for drones

Indeed, the Federal Aviation Authority is about to make a giant leap towards unleashing drones into American skies. The FAA has promised to announce by the end of the month the six states that it has chosen as the hosts of the official drone test sites that within a couple of years will provide a “road map" to drone participation in civilian life, including the integration of larger, high-altitude, unmanned aircraft into the air traffic control system.

Small drones (defined as those lighter than 55lbs) could be allowed to begin commercial operations in the US as early as 2015, according to aviation experts. Larger unmanned vehicles designed for use in heavier tasks such as crop spraying and cargo delivery are expected to follow suit by around 2020.

Already, a burgeoning sector of aerospace firms is actively developing civilian UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) in preparation for FAA approval. Some of the drones are small enough to put in your pocket; some are powered by the Sun. Their potential uses range from crowd control and law enforcement to predicting tornadoes and surveying livestock on cattle ranches. One, the snappily-named Dehogaflier, is designed to lead hunters towards feral pigs.

“In 10 years everyone will be familiar with UAVs, they will be routine,” said James Grimsley, the CEO of Design Intelligence Corporation, a tech company that is developing a solar-powered drone called the Eturnas. “As they get cheaper and smaller, they will be used more and more, until they become ordinary.”

Oklahoma is one of 24 states bidding to host one of the six FAA test sites. The stakes are high: the Oklahoma department of commerce estimates that if the state is awarded one of the contracts it stands to create 2,000 jobs and generate $200m a year in economic activity as well as $20m in state tax revenues. Overall, the Teal Group has suggested that drones could be doing $100bn of business across the country by 2025.

Full Story Here

UPS Feeling Heat after Missing Deadline on Xmas Deliveries

Still waiting for Santa? You are not alone.

Holiday spirit turned to rage today as irritated consumers dealt with a third day of broken promises while UPS, the world's largest package delivery company, staggered to recover from a holiday crush that caught the service unprepared and left thousands of people short of gifts under their Christmas trees.

The delays certainly cost UPS good will, and analysts say they could also cost the company business if customers grow distrustful and choose other ways to ship.

The poor performance will make consumers think twice next holiday season about delivery promises and could boost the popularity of "buy online, ship to store" options that many stores offer, says retail brand strategy expert Ken Nisch, chairman of JGA, a firm that represents clients including Macy's, Godiva and The North Face. And retailers will have to reconsider guaranteeing delivery they can't control, he says. Amazon, the No. 1 online retailer in the week before Christmas, as measured by Experian Marketing Services, fulfilled its end of the bargain by packing its shipments and delivering them to the carriers "on time for holiday delivery," Amazon spokeswoman Mary Osako said.

"We are reviewing the performance of the delivery carriers," said Osako, who noted that Amazon refunded shipping charges for delayed packages and offered customers a $20 gift card for the inconvenience.

As irate customers vented their anger on the UPS Facebook page, the company responded to many by apologizing and asking for shipping information to get the packages on the right track.

UPS drivers did not deliver on Christmas Day, but sorters worked Christmas afternoon and evening to load planes at UPS' air hub in Louisville. Even so, UPS said, some packages that were promised to arrive before Christmas still wouldn't arrive until Friday.

"We're making every effort to get all the packages delivered," UPS spokeswoman Natalie Godwin said.

"Nearly all" the delayed packages would get to their destinations Thursday, she said.

UPS, which delivers more than 16 million packages a day to 220 countries, had expected an 8% increase in volume for the peak holiday season.

"Demand was much greater than forecast," Godwin said.

She did not say how many packages were affected by the delay.

UPS spokesman Jeff Wafford said some customers who paid for two-day delivery or faster may get refunds of the shipping charges.

Full Story Here

Bill Would Change State Funding for Public Educaiton

State lawmakers are looking to make changes, big and small, in public schools during the 2014 legislative session, ranging from requiring that school districts offer advertising space inside school buses to overhauling the K-12 funding system.

Other bills would change the process of how trustees are selected for state-funded colleges and universities, set up mechanisms for dealing with bullies in schools and institute full-day kindergarten for all four-year-olds in the state.

Perhaps the most far-reaching bill is one called the South Carolina Jobs, Education and Tax Act, which would revise the complex Education Finance Act and do away with a formula that now sends less state money to richer school districts such as Greenville County.

The bill, pre-filed by Dorchester County Republican Rep. Jenny Anderson Horne, would create a South Carolina Public Education Program Fund, separate from the state’s general fund.

A major component of the new funding system would be a 100-mill statewide property tax in place of the penny sales tax that the Legislature swapped with property taxes for school operations in 2007.

The bill also would re-institute the authority of local school boards to levy property taxes for operational purposes of up to 8 percent of the assessed value of property within the district.

It strikes the controversial wording in the existing law that says the state will guarantee “at least minimum” educational programs.

In its place, the bill says the state will provide each student educational programs appropriate to their needs, “using research-based educational strategies that are successful in educating students to high academic standards, with the goal of ensuring that students achieve at the academic performance levels required by the state constitution and state law.”

Another bill would do away with caps on millage rate increases for school facilities in cases where repairs are needed for the safety of schools.

Republican Rep. Joshua Putnam of Anderson and Fairfield County Democrat Rep. MaryGail Douglas filed a bill that would require school districts to offer for sale “child friendly commercial advertisements on public school buses,” except those owned by a school or district.

The money could be used only for buying new buses in the district that generated the advertising money and covering the costs of the advertising program.

South Carolina is the only state in the nation that operates a statewide school bus system, and educators say it’s the oldest fleet in the country.

Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/2013/12/26/3177888/pending-bills-would-make-changes.html#storylink=cpy

1.3 Million to Lose Federal Unemployment Benefits Saturday

Some 1.3 million Americans are set to lose their unemployment benefits Saturday, escalating a battle between proponents of smaller government and advocates for the jobless who say the move will hurt the overall economy.

Federal emergency benefits will end when funds run out for a program created during the recession to supplement the benefits that states provide. The cutoff will initially affect 1.3 million people, but 1.9 million more will lose benefits by mid-2014 when their 26 weeks of state paychecks run out, according to the National Employment Law Project.

Benefits average about $300 a week.

"From a human level, cutting 1.3 million Americans off their lifeline doesn't make any sense and it's not anything we should be doing," Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., said Thursday in a conference call with reporters.

S.C. Home to Hottest Pepper on Earth

Ed Currie holds one of his world-record Carolina Reaper peppers by the stem, which looks like the tail of a scorpion.   

On the other end is the bumpy, oily, fire-engine red fruit with a punch of heat nearly as potent as most pepper sprays used by police. It's hot enough to leave even the most seasoned spicy food aficionado crimson-faced, flushed with sweat, trying not to lose his lunch.  

Last month, The Guinness Book of World Records decided Currie's peppers were the hottest on Earth, ending a more than four-year drive to prove no one grows a more scorching chili. 

The heat of Currie's peppers was certified by students at Winthrop University who test food as part of their undergraduate classes.  

But whether Currie's peppers are truly the world's hottest is a question that one scientist said can never be known. The heat of a pepper depends not just on the plant's genetics, but also where it is grown, said Paul Bosland, director of the Chile Pepper Institute at New Mexico State University. And the heat of a pepper is more about being macho than seasoning.  

"You have to think of chili heat like salt. A little bit improves the flavor, but a lot ruins it," Bosland said. 

Some ask Currie if the record should be given to the single hottest pepper tested instead of the mean taken over a whole batch. After all, Usain Bolt isn't considered the world's fastest man because of his average time over several races.   

But Currie shakes off those questions.  

"What's the sense in calling something a record if it can't be replicated? People want to be able to say they ate the world's hottest pepper," Currie said.  

The record is for the hottest batch of Currie's peppers that was tested, code name HP22B for "Higher Power, Pot No. 22, Plant B." Currie said he has peppers from other pots and other plants that have comparable heat.   The science of hot peppers centers around chemical compounds called capsaicinoids. The higher concentration the hotter the pepper, said Cliff Calloway, the Winthrop University professor whose students tested Currie's peppers.  

The heat of a pepper is measured in Scoville Heat Units. Zero is bland, and a regular jalapeno pepper registers around 5,000 on the Scoville scale. Currie's world record batch of Carolina Reapers comes in at 1,569,300 Scoville Heat Units, with an individual pepper measured at 2.2 million. Pepper spray weighs in at about 2 million Scoville Units.  

Full Story Here

Most of the Miracle of Christmas, You Don't See

By Frederick Buechner

“Christmas:  The lovely old carols played and replayed till their effect is like a dentist’s drill or a jack hammer, the bathetic banalities of the pulpit and the chilling commercialism of almost everything else, people spending money they can’t afford on presents you neither need nor want, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” the plastic tree, the cornball creche, the Hallmark Virgin. Yet for all our efforts, we’ve never quite managed to ruin it. That in itself is part of the miracle, a part you can see. Most of the miracle you can’t see, or don’t.    

The young clergyman and his wife do all the things you do on Christmas Eve. They string the lights and hang the ornaments. They supervise the hanging of the stockings. They tuck in the children. They lug the presents down out of hiding and pile them under the tree. Just as they’re about to fall exhausted into bed, the husband remembers his neighbor’s sheep. The man asked him to feed them for him while he was away, and in the press of other matters that night he forgot all about them. So down the hill he goes through knee-deep snow. He gets two bales of hay from the barn and carries them out to the shed. There’s a forty-watt bulb hanging by its cord from the low roof, and he lights it. The sheep huddle in a corner watching as he snaps the baling twine, shakes the squares of hay apart and starts scattering it. Then they come bumbling and shoving to get at it with their foolish, mild faces, the puffs of their breath showing in the air. He is reaching to turn off the bulb and leave when suddenly he realizes where he is. The winter darkness. The glimmer of light. The smell of the hay and the sound of the animals eating. Where he is, of course, is the manger.

He only just saw it. He whose business it is above everything else to have an eye for such things is all but blind in that eye. He who on his best days believes that everything that is most precious anywhere comes from that manger might easily have gone home to bed never knowing that he had himself just been in the manger. The world is the manger. It is only by grace that he happens to see this other part of the miracle.

Christmas itself is by grace. It could never have survived our own blindness and depredations otherwise. It could never have happened otherwise. Perhaps it is the very wildness and strangeness of the grace that has led us to try to tame it. We have tried to make it habitable. We have roofed it in and furnished it. We have reduced it to an occasion we feel at home with, at best a touching and beautiful occasion, at worst a trite and cloying one. But if the Christmas event in itself is indeed – as a matter of cold, hard fact – all it’s cracked up to be, then even at best our efforts are misleading.

The Word become flesh. Ultimate Mystery born with a skull you could crush one-handed. Incarnation. It is not tame. It is not touching. It is not beautiful. It is uninhabitable terror. It is unthinkable darkness riven with unbearable light. Agonized laboring led to it, vast upheavals of intergalactic space, time split apart, a wrenching and tearing of the very sinews of reality itself. You can only cover your eyes and shudder before it, before this: “God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God… who for us and for our salvation,” as the Nicene Creed puts it, “came down from heaven.”

Came down. Only then do we dare uncover our eyes and see what we can see. It is the Resurrection and the Life she holds in her arms. It is the bitterness of death he takes at her breast.”