Here, I offer something most personal. Below are some pages from a project I prepared for and then sent to my beloved, in the autumn of 1977 (© Stephen Holmgren 2023), about 45 years ago. She was someone who I very much hoped might in the future be my betrothed. She was and is, Martha, to whom I sent this booklet in the autumn of 1977. Designed and composed in a pension in Florence, Italy, assisted by access to a manual typewriter at St James, the local Episcopal / Anglican parish in Florence, I prepared this multipage document, and sent it to Martha who was pursuing a study year in Taipei. Amazingly, it got there through international mail, and equally amazing is the fact that we still have the physical original of the little  booklet today. (God is good / all the time)

Of course, like all proponents of eternal love and affection, I have fallen short of living into the ideal. But, I still believe in it! Those of us who have entered into this particular covenant can admit this. Why? Because in the covenantal reality of Judaism, and then within Christianity, what we do, and perhaps more importantly what we have failed to do, is not the real issue. The real thing is the the One who grasps us, holds us, and saves us, always. And, the One who holds us together.