The Last Day of the Year
There are less than three hours left in 2012 on the East Coast, and where I live is still considered in the region. So I am spending these last few hours at home, in my room/study,with old movies on TV and my dogs asleep on my bed. I don't know if I will make it to midnight, but that's ok. I am still battling a cold, have some reading to do, and I wanted to catch up on this blog on this last day of the year. As I have written before, I considered the new year somewhat artificial, so I'm not making resolutions. It is a good time to review what has been successful and good and not really to revel in anything that was bad. The bad, other than a two-week flu bout and my son's long unemployment, is still with me and very much a part of my life (my mother's cancer battle). Accomplishments professionally were many: successful SACS leadership, winning a service award, having two more novels published, starting doctoral work, but lots of good times and friends mainly.
All that matters in the New Year is to devote myself to following Christ fully, to listen to the Holy Spirit when I am nudged to speak, to testify, to love, to act, to bend, to give, to go.
I do plan to do the following in the new year:
1. live healthily
2. teach better than I ever have
3. earn 18 hours of doctoral credits
4. meet my first critical milestone (essentially, the prospectus for the dissertation)
5. finish my novel
6. Read the prophets in the Old Testament
7. Take care of my mother. This will be the consuming act.
8. run a good GCA conference
9. pay off the house
10. finish out my fellowship for CAE (someone else will do it if they like)
I plan to not do the following in the new year.
1. be wasteful of time or money or calories
2. read any fiction that was written in the 21st century
Anyone who reads this blog or knows me will know that I was miserably unhappy about the election, not because I was in love with Romney but because I believe Pres. Obama is very bad for this country. I still do; that opinion is unlikely to change, although I am also perturbed about this fiscal cliff nonsense which is due to Congress and the White House not doing their jobs for two years. No wonder my students procrastinate! These folks have taken it to a new level, or perhaps depth. I don't look forward to paying more taxes, but if the benefits of it were distributed equally, I'd be happier. Far, far too much of it is wasted, and B. Obama has never seen a government spending program he didn't like. I find him a dishonest and insincere person, to say nothing of incompetent when it comes to economic issues.
I was listening to a radio interview about heaven today. I do not think about heaven much, just like I do not think about the second coming or apocalypse much. It is more important to me that what I do now glorify God and build the kingdom here. Eternity will take care of itself. However, it is our comfort. It is comforting, and mind-stretching, to think that everything that defines our lives here will not be in heaven, and one of those is constant change. Yet we find constant change invigorating, so will heaven not be invigorating? This is the core enigma--we will not be the people we are now in heaven, so what will we be? Just like our lives our defined so much by negatives in this world, our personalities and beings are also defined by negatives and deficiencies here. I don't know much--so I want to know more. My ignorance motivates and defines me. Another person lacks love, or feels she does--so she might do good or bad to get that love.
I did go see The Hobbit and Les Miserables in the last week, the only two movies I have wanted to see. They were both wonderful, but of course flawed. The Hobbit had some portions that were too cartoonish and that took away the seriousness of the tale. A person watching Les Miserables needs to remember that the core of the story is not just grace vs. law (as we evangelicals tends to define it) but societal injustice. We shorten the title to Laymiz and forget the title is really "The Oppressed, the downtrodden, the orphaned, the widowed, the dirt poor, the miserable ones."
I do not believe I will write on this blog or the other for a while. I have a very full schedule for the next several months, perhaps years. So this will lay dormant. I hope anyone coming across it will check out the archives and find some interesting articles.
Happy New Year.
All that matters in the New Year is to devote myself to following Christ fully, to listen to the Holy Spirit when I am nudged to speak, to testify, to love, to act, to bend, to give, to go.
I do plan to do the following in the new year:
1. live healthily
2. teach better than I ever have
3. earn 18 hours of doctoral credits
4. meet my first critical milestone (essentially, the prospectus for the dissertation)
5. finish my novel
6. Read the prophets in the Old Testament
7. Take care of my mother. This will be the consuming act.
8. run a good GCA conference
9. pay off the house
10. finish out my fellowship for CAE (someone else will do it if they like)
I plan to not do the following in the new year.
1. be wasteful of time or money or calories
2. read any fiction that was written in the 21st century
Anyone who reads this blog or knows me will know that I was miserably unhappy about the election, not because I was in love with Romney but because I believe Pres. Obama is very bad for this country. I still do; that opinion is unlikely to change, although I am also perturbed about this fiscal cliff nonsense which is due to Congress and the White House not doing their jobs for two years. No wonder my students procrastinate! These folks have taken it to a new level, or perhaps depth. I don't look forward to paying more taxes, but if the benefits of it were distributed equally, I'd be happier. Far, far too much of it is wasted, and B. Obama has never seen a government spending program he didn't like. I find him a dishonest and insincere person, to say nothing of incompetent when it comes to economic issues.
I was listening to a radio interview about heaven today. I do not think about heaven much, just like I do not think about the second coming or apocalypse much. It is more important to me that what I do now glorify God and build the kingdom here. Eternity will take care of itself. However, it is our comfort. It is comforting, and mind-stretching, to think that everything that defines our lives here will not be in heaven, and one of those is constant change. Yet we find constant change invigorating, so will heaven not be invigorating? This is the core enigma--we will not be the people we are now in heaven, so what will we be? Just like our lives our defined so much by negatives in this world, our personalities and beings are also defined by negatives and deficiencies here. I don't know much--so I want to know more. My ignorance motivates and defines me. Another person lacks love, or feels she does--so she might do good or bad to get that love.
I did go see The Hobbit and Les Miserables in the last week, the only two movies I have wanted to see. They were both wonderful, but of course flawed. The Hobbit had some portions that were too cartoonish and that took away the seriousness of the tale. A person watching Les Miserables needs to remember that the core of the story is not just grace vs. law (as we evangelicals tends to define it) but societal injustice. We shorten the title to Laymiz and forget the title is really "The Oppressed, the downtrodden, the orphaned, the widowed, the dirt poor, the miserable ones."
I do not believe I will write on this blog or the other for a while. I have a very full schedule for the next several months, perhaps years. So this will lay dormant. I hope anyone coming across it will check out the archives and find some interesting articles.
Happy New Year.
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