Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the Touchstone family!

It’s the last month of the year with the shortest days of the year. And yet it is a month of light, music, food and drink around social and religious gatherings –for those of us who are affluent or healthy enough to participate. 

It has been a terrific year for Susan and me as well as for Touchstone. Susan and I celebrated our 50th anniversary. Touchstone has widened its influence among the hundreds who are viewing, engaging and benefiting from our social media creations. 

We walked and hacked and chatted around the golf course, more slowly, less skillfully but more gently than when we first started playing together more than 20 years ago. Walking from the final hole to the clubhouse I stopped to look back. My friend had paused on a hill that we would have bounded up in the past – but slower has become richer as we age together.

From Jerusalem to Timbuktu  is my good friend Brian Stiller’s new book. It’s a great read, opening our eyes to the spectacular numerical and spiritual growth of followers of Jesus around the globe and in some very unexpected places.

Norm’s good friend Ron Nikkel draws on his years of prison ministry around the world to offer deep reflections on the love of God in these beautifully written articles entitled “Coracle”.