How to get through 2021: Day by Day

I volunteer with our church youth group, It is for 6th graders through 12th graders.  Until recently it was two separate youth groups one for 6th 7th and 8th graders and one for 9th through 12th graders  meeting on separate nights of the week.  During the Summer we would allow the incoming 6th graders to join the middle school group and the outgoing 8th graders to attend both groups.  As the Summer would draw to an end I would give the outgoing 8th graders a short (2-3 minute) commencement  on their last night of the younger group.

In 2016 my son Charlie was one of the kids moving up to the high school group.  I challenged the students to have a "2020" vision of what they hoped to achieve in High School especially how they could be used by God in their new schools.  

Little did any of us know about what the year 2020 held for us. In fact my son's senior year was progressing quite normally until March 13th turned out to be his last day of high school that actually met at the high school.  Since that day, 2020 was a rather tumultuous year (Understatement Alert).  

The events of the past 2 weeks make 2021 look like it's going to be more of the same.  How do we get through another year like that?

The answer both figurarively, literally and musically is Day By Day

 

As this  great song suggests we can not only get through 2021 but thrive in the midst of it by doing these 3 things from Day by Day, day by day.

Seeing God more clearly

Loving God more dearly

Following God more nearly.

So like I told the YG in 2016 vision is important.  The vision that God is showing me for 2021 requires more time Seeing God through time spent in his word, Following God through obedience to his word  and Loving God by loving his creation.  I hope to expound on this more in further posts. Right now I'm just taking it day by day.

White Sox Top 5 Moments from 2020

 Thanks White Sox.com for this video showing 5 great moments from the 2020 season. 

 

# 5 Luca Giolito wins game #1 of playoffs against Oakland A's

#4 Yoan Moncada, Yasmani Grandal, Jose Abreu and Eloy Jimenez hit back to back to back to back homeruns against the Cardinals.

#3 Jose Abreu Hits 3 homers in a row against Cubs.

#2 Lucas Giolito no hits the Pirates for 19th White Sox No Hitter.

#1 White Sox clinch first playoff berth since 2008.

If Sitcom Songs Were About Quarantine

Comedian By Steve Taylor

 I lived in Russia between the end of 1992 and the end of 1994.  During those 2 years abroad, I missed many things.  By missed I don't mean longed for, although I certainly did miss Mountain Dew and Lou Malnatis's pizza by that definition and was glad when my brother brought those along when he visited me.  I also don't mean by miss that I wasn't there for it, yet heard about.  While I want there for the Bronco chase , Nolan Ryan's pummeling of Robin Ventura, Michael Jordan's retirement announcement , or  the birth of my first niece,  I was acutely aware of all 4.

No, what I mean by missed is there were some events that I did not hear about until I was back in the states, sometimes for several years.  Some of these were deaths of famous people, others were books, movies, or music that came out during that time.  It wasn't uncommon to hear someone talk about a movie I had never heard of, only for me to ask if it came out in 1993 or 1994 and quite often it had.  Finally, I had to come to grips that due to my decision to leave the U.S. and plant a church in Russia in the early 1990's that there would be indeed certain things that I left behind and missed entirely.  I never regretted that decision and certainly experienced many more things that I would have never experienced in the states had I stayed put.

Over the past few years I have realized that I have experienced another gap without leaving the U.S. for more than a fortnight every 10 years or so.  I experienced it today when I was playing with my Spotify account in between classes.  There was a recommended song by Steve Taylor and some band he was in and I had never heard of the song or the band.  Now not to be confusing Steve Taylor uses to front for a band called Some Band.  So, I am not referring to them.  The name of the band is The Perfect foil,  and according to Wikipedia it is an alt. rock supergroup featuring artists from 2 more of my favorite groups (Peter Furler from Newsboys & Jimmy Abegg from (A Ragamuffin Band).  What was odd is this super group was formed in 2010, and I was only just hearing about it 11 years later.  Not really odd when you think that in 2010 I was homeschooling my 3 children all under the age of 11.  Listening to old music on c.d.s is something I did when I had the occasional spare time. Keeping up with music was  not something I invested much time in.  Again, I would not trade that time in my life for anything but it does explain how a song like Comedian stayed off my radar for so long.

A nice thing about discovering something you missed from long ago is that when you do eventually discover it, you also  discover many other things alongside it.  In finding out more information in this missing chapter of Steve Taylors musical journey I discovered a blog that writes an awful lot about Christian Music and other topics that interest me.  It is a blog by Keith Shields called Thirst  and he does an entire post about this song.  I encourage you to do what he suggests in his post which is listen to this song (I have put the Spotify link below at the same time you read the lyrics to the song and then read how the song affected him.  (The link to his post is here.) 

I enjoyed his interpretation of a song from 11  years ago that I only just discovered this morning.  Still in all I'm glad I didn't miss it.  

Taking 2020 from 1677 and Staying Positive.

 Penultimate is one of my favorite words.  It means second to last.  I use the word so often it drives my family a little crazy.  So, when I woke up this morning on the day before New Years Eve, 2020, penultimate popped into my head pretty quickly.

I turned to the Merriam Webster website for the last word on penultimate. It seems the word was first used in  print all the way back in 1677.  Thanks to the time traveler feature at the MW site, I discovered many words that came into print in 1677 still had special significance in 2020.  To illustrate I will jot a few words about 2020 as it draws nigh and embolden  the words from 1677. I have also put links on each word to their definition as some of these 1677 words were new to me. 

I always like to be veracious so as I look back at the year 2020  I must say that after some introspection I am somewhat glad that this is the penultimate day of a year that was  as oppressive as it was implausible; as riveting as it was slatternly. 

I don't like to sound huffy, but it upset me when  I found out this March that both my jobs were inessential. I would turn on the television to watch the splutter of unsustainable overpromise. Never-mind the tug-of-war between the ballot box and the electoral college that tried to make  the courtroom function as a middleman. 

I'm sure that years from now when we unpack a yearbook from a duffel ,2020 will still be considered a difficult year; with some exertion and by being intentional we were able to configure a new normal. I'm sorry I hope you didn't doze off while I went on like someone giving a keynote at a quarterly meeting.