Darrel & Peter’s Christmas Card

After I posted the Icon Christmas Card, the last thing I expected was some competition in the Christmas card business from my friend Darrel Fickbohm.

But here it was, a beautiful Christmas Card (images above and at left), that captures the true meaning of Christmas in words and artwork.

The original watercolor, by Darrel's friend Peter Deming, would be enough to make this a special keepsake. But there's also Darrel's poetry:
…

We sometimes forget—I forget

Lost in the clichéd images of a thousand

Cardboard dioramas

What do I do with this picture?

It is simply stated in the record

A few lines only

Saying that He was born

In a stable, a barn, a cave hallowed out for animals

Because there was no room anywhere else.

…

There was the pulse of a bass note that thrummed

Rippled across the collective imagining

A new idea was coming,

And once it was released no power

Could suppress it:

…

Love Thy Neighbor

When Darrel isn't writing poetry, he works as a graphic artist, and runs a successful framing gallery. "How odd that you should email me," he writes, "at the exact moment that I'm finishing your icon's frame with gold buff. Maybe miracles do surround the labors involved in producing icons. I've always heard that they do. I love working on a project like this. I always imagine myself as one of the old craftsmen laboring away in their dim cells; working on their icons for the glory of God."

I expected a beautifully framed icon from Darrel—but such a unique nativity card with such a moving poem? Ms. Chesebro, the gifted English teacher we once shared, will be so proud.

Thanks, Darrel and Peter!

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