This is the time of year when you realize you know your friends, but you don’t know which holiday they celebrate. So our best wishes to everyone, everyplace, whatever you call your end of the year celebration.
– We rejoice in being in a business which allows us to share a small part of so many people’s lives and to be immersed in such a wonderfully diverse community. You have allowed us into your world in ways we never could have dreamed of before we became a part of this Bettina Network. We hope it continues into the next year and into the next generation!
Thank you for having given us so much. Money tips are not allowed in the Bettina Network – from anyone – because our “tips” come from so many greater gifts from our guests as we share their lives no matter how briefly.
We have a favorite poem we pull out at this time of year, written by The Rev. Dr. Howard Thurman who was the Dean of Boston University’s Marsh Chapel from 1953-1962. He was an exceptional person and his writings are what some of us turn to when we feel as though we are straying from the path we are called to walk. It is said that Martin Luther King, Jr. kept two books next to his bedside wherever he travelled – one was the Bible, the other was Howard Thurman’s book “Jesus and the Disinherited.”
It makes quite a statement about Boston University to know that in the 1950’s, when it wasn’t popular, the Dean of Marsh Chapel was an African-American. That was a time when, if Howard Thurman went to conferences, or travelled about the country on Boston University’s business, he would not be able to stay in the hotel in which the conference was held because hotels, in that fairly recent time frame, refused to accept African-American guests. Howard Thurman would have to enter the hotel through the back door or staff entrance to attend the conference because African-Americans were not allowed to enter hotels through their front doors. When he travelled on other business he stayed with friends, Boston University Alumnus or bed & breakfasts. In spite of these deterrents, Boston University selected Howard Thurman for what was one of its most prestigious appointments.
Our holiday gift to you is this poem by Howard Thurman. Many of us had to memorize this poem in grammar school and it has stayed in our hearts. We hope you will pass it along to your children!!
“When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and the princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
Then the work of Christmas begins.
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among brothers (and sisters),
To make music in the heart.”
MAY THE JOY, PEACE AND PROMISE OF THIS SEASON PERVADE YOUR LIFE AS LONG AS IT LASTS AND AT THE END, TAKE YOU INTO THAT PROMISED LAND GLORIOUSLY!!!!!
From all of us at the Bettina Network!
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