Plunging Into the New Year

The venerable Mr. Lang's neon marker has been illuminated and a new year has come in. For several months now my mind has been wanting to write 2008 at the end of dates and it felt very freeing to do so on my rent check and the health waiver I signed this morning. I hope it's a good year and that I experience it that way. I just as soon enjoy it as it comes as in retrospect but I'll take what God gives.

I had a good break over the last week. I went home and heard Daddy sing powerfully about the Holy Night. I saw Mom share her love and clean house with others on Christmas Eve. I opened cool gifts in Georgetown, Corbin, and Red Bank, though I missed the singing in Corbin in the midst of the fun games. I had fun with Ann and Daniel and with Lydia and Geron and Cora. We got to share a short but nice visit with my friend John, owner of the Harmony House Cafe off U.S. 27 in Dayton, TN. I was good to hear John's vision for ministry and education. I got to try the shepherd's pie and bread pudding in Rugby, TN and ride across KY-92 between Whitley City and Williamsburg just north of Jellico Mountain. I enjoyed the relationship between my parents and the staff and owners of the Plum Tree in Georgetown and enjoyed the food as always. I had a good smooth drive back to Illinois and got to celebrate New Years on Greenwich Mean Time over web cam with friends at Cindee's. I got to try a good beef stewp and lose, yes, lose two games of Lord of the Rings Trivial Pursuit. It wasn't even really close on my end. Cindee, Gill, Karen and Janie were just too good. I got snowed in Long Grove but with help managed to make it up to Waukegan to ring in the new year in several more time zones with a bunch of friends while playing foosball and making continent shaped champagne spills.

This morning I went back up to Waukegan to plunge into Lake Michigan to support Special Athletics. The water wasn't too bad and the warming tent was positively nice. I'da stayed in longer but Steve'da frozen if I had. He wouldn't go into the nice warm (relative to the air) water but was willing to stand on the beach in the cold wind with a camera to capture my folly. Like so many other blogs I've read, I've spent the day resting and puttering or "mildewing" as Daddy says.

There's a lot to look forward to this year. I get to teach youth about Mary, about Reading the Bible, about other stuff we decide to study. I get to lead a fine LIFEgroup. I get to live holier and hopefully healthier. I get to read all kinds of books and maybe blog about them for a change. I get to read about libraries and information science, about the development of the canon of scripture, to read medieval and later epic poems in translation, to read Discworld, Tolkien, and others. I get to help advance the collection at a fine library and finally contribute to some exciting changes in how we provide access to that collection. I'll probably get to travel some and see folks I love in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Minnesota, and maybe other places as well. I get, even now, to remember that my life is but a vapor, if a heavy one, and that Lord willing, I'll live and do this or that. Whatever I do I want to prove the shirt I wore into the Lake this morning and do everything to the Glory of God. Happy New Year to y'all whosoever you are.

Verse of the year:
"And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the father through him." Colossians 3:17 (ESV)