"Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord is dawning upon you. Look, the darkness covers the earth, and deep darkness covers the peoples, but the Lord will dawn upon you, and his glory will be seen over you. Nations will walk to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn." --Isaiah 60:1-3 Christmas 2016 Dear Friends and Family, Merry Christmas to you all, perhaps a belated one by the time you read this. It's been a tough year for me as far as health is concerned, and I was grateful for the chance to attend Christmas worship today and hear the above reading as part of the Service of Readings and Hymns. I'm looking forward to brighter days ahead. I'll lead off by boring you with my health issues... Early this year the chronic form of lymphoma that I have worsened, and I received a round of four Rituxan (monoclonal antibody) treatments for it, weekly during Febrary. Unfortunately that was only partially effective, so in May I started a round of six treatments with Bendamustine, a chemo drug, plus Rituxan, once every four weeks. Rituxan has minimal side effects, but Bendamustine is much harder to tolerate, although easier than many chemo agents. While I was in treatment I continued to work at VMware, mostly from home, on the days when I had enough energy. Now that I've been done for a couple of months I'm feeling okay, but my doctor says it will be a bit longer before I really have my energy back. The good news is that this treatment was much more effective and I can hope for a few years before I'll need treatment again. At the same time this was happening, but unrelated, I developed a nasty case of metatarsalgia in my feet, which makes it somewhat painful to walk. That started around March. My doctor has tried a variety of treatments, most of which haven't helped much, if at all. Currently I'm in physical therapy and am wearing custom inserts in my shoes, and I think it's slowly and unsteadily getting better. On the more pleasant side of my year, I made a trip to Milwaukee and the Boston area in April to see my older siblings Mary and Bill and my sister-in-law Nancy. I flew in to Milwaukee and spent a few days with Mary, and then the two of us flew together to Boston to spend a week with Bill and Nancy, before returning to Milwaukee for a couple more days. It was wonderful for the four of us to all get together again. The visit was marred a bit by lots of rain and everyone having health issues -- including Bill and Nancy's cat Bandersnatch having to be rushed to the veternary hospital! We still had a great time doing indoor things like learning and playing the card game Dominion, playing with the other cats, watching Golden State in the playoffs on TV, and just generally hanging out together. I wasn't able to make it to Bible Camp this year, but I still served as treasurer on the board of directors. I lent some of my sound equipment to one of our other talented musicians and I hear he did a fine job leading the singing. I hope I'll be able to make it again next year, but right now the amount of walking required at camp seems daunting. I'm also still serving as treasurer for my church, and for the homeowners' association of the small condo development that I live in (10 townhouses). Fortunately the latter position is very little work. Mostly I just have to sign checks that our management company prepares. My cats Tessa and Katinka are still going strong. Tessa is the old lady now, but still in good shape for her age (about 14). I've had Katinka for two years now, and she is about 4 years old. She's quite the attention seeker, constantly meowing whenever she wants anything. On the plus side, sometimes all she wants is to sit on top of me and purr until she falls asleep. The two cats get along much better now, but they still don't really like each other, unfortunately. I am signed up to play guitar for the New Year's Eve service at my church this coming Saturday. I'm pretty out of practice right now, but fortunately I have a week to get back into it. I'm on vacation all this week. Hmm, I think I'll close this letter now and pull out the guitar for a while! Christmas blessings, Tim Mann