707 Leahy St. #127-C Redwood City, CA 94061 mann@pa.dec.com December 14, 1997 Dear Friends and Family, Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned. The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed. (Is. 40:1-5, KJV) This past Friday I had the joy of singing these words to Handel's wonderful music, at Stanford's annual Messiah singalong. The director commented on Handel's skill at painting with music: how he (for example) set the word "crooked" to a jagged line of up-and-down eighth notes and "straight" to a long, firm half note. But Isaiah himself was painting with words: Jerusalem is not just a city in Israel, but stands for all God's people throughout time. Our warfare against God is over because our iniquity is pardoned; we are no longer His enemies, but His loyal subjects. We are now engaged not in straightening roads or grading the countryside by means of bulldozers, but in straightening out our lives by means of His power working in us. And as we do so, the glory of the Lord is revealed in us. The blessings I have to look back on have largely been in the continuation and renewal of good things, not in new developments. I celebrated my tenth anniversary at my current job and my fifth anniversary in my current apartment. I did lose my roommate---Jeff went back to school at Martin Luther College to study for the teaching ministry. It's been a good year for music and a very good year for renewing old friendships. On the musical side, I organized a "Praise Night" with the TwentySomething Bible study group back in February. This was a singalong of contemporary Christian songs. I played guitar on most of the songs, with friends Sarah helping on keyboard, Kristen on flute, and Tino as special guest guitarist. All the instrumentalists and singers had a great time, though we were a bit disappointed by light attendance. In July I was again song leader at Bible camp. This year I took a more casual approach with no extra instrumentalists and no revisions to the song booklet from last year. It still went very well, thanks in part to excellent singers Lee, Jordan, and others helping me up front. I also play regularly for Sunday school opening at church. I was playing at TwentySomething most Friday nights until fall, when I gave up my music coordinator position with the group. I had several chances to renew friendships. I flew back to Milwaukee in October for my twentieth high school reunion. It was great to see so many familiar faces again, though I also missed some I had hoped to see. That same weekend I got together with a group of folks I had worked with some 15 years ago, when I did operating system programming for Radio Shack TRS-80 computers. Most are still in computers, but we've all followed quite diverse career paths. Twice this year my friend Deb, whom I've known since college days, was in San Francisco for conferences, so we were able to get together and do some sightseeing, including a trip to Yosemite. I also got to renew some friendships by email; besides the TRS-80 folks, a number of other friends got online and unexpectedly sent me email. The most unexpected was Jeanine, who had moved (unbeknowst to me) to Japan for a year and sent me email from there! If you've gotten on the Internet recently, feel free to write me (address above), and check out my Web pages at http://www.research.digital.com/SRC/personal/Tim_Mann/. In talking with my high school friend Glenn, I came to be thankful that I travel a lot less than he does. I did get to St.-Malo, France, briefly for a conference, and twice to Massachusetts on business, where I worked in a nice visit with my brother and his wife. I was also pleased to see my mother do some travelling; she graced me with a visit at Easter. Love to you all in Christ,