January 16, 2021
Good Morning, God and All...
And maybe I should leave it at that. After all, it seems that good morning is the best thing that can be said lately. Even that simple greeting does not appear to last long amid the distraction of the day's headlines.
I am torn; at a loss, wondering if there is any resiliency and decency left in my country. And while I know that by God's grace these still exist, I have trouble seeing it. This, with the loss of family over the last few years, and the restrictions brought on by age and the coronavirus pandemic, leaves me - and I'm sure many of you - alone and depressed, to the point where it's easy to think God has abandoned us, even though He has not.
Okay, the title is more than a little self-promoting. I've been writing personal reflections for the better part of two decades. I've had the opportunity to reread some of them, and I'm still satisfied with them. Has it made any difference, though? Would the world be better or worse if I had not written them? Would I promote God or myself if I posted these things where anybody could read them? Or would I get caught up in the current culture and get shut down simply because I don't believe the same way many others do?
Our Lord Jesus Christ (he's not just mine, but is there for everyone) chose his inner circle; his twelve apostles (his Cabinet, if you will) without qualification or experience. One day he stands up in the Temple as Nazareth's native son and, reading from Isaiah, declares that he has been anointed with the Spirit of God to proclaim freedom, liberation, and healing; bringing a time of God's favor. And to make absolutely clear, he says that he fulfills that ancient passage that very day in their very presence. Do you remember what happened next? He's run out of town, nearly being tossed off a cliff. But his time of total fulfillment not having yet come, he continues in his mission and purpose.
Over the course of many weeks, I would prepare each week's Post by compiling the historical data - the almanac - first. Rarely would I write the reflection first. I would wait and see if anything from the almanac, or the upcoming Sunday readings, would inspire me. Right now they do not. What it does now is show me, while the messages are still timely and will always be because they're of God speaking to me, how much farther we have drifted away from them, even as I've tried to share them.
I have all but given up. For all the typing I do on the computer, I never took a typing or keyboarding course in school. I don't have to hunt and peck, and I can use both hands. As I grow older, though, the sensation in those hands make the typing effort more difficult, the errors a bit more frequent, the patience strained, and the temptation to abandon the whole thing, greater. But I cannot. I still have the ability to reach out to people about the one thing that matters; our life in eternity with Christ.
Maybe now isn't the time to remember the "good old days", if indeed any of them were more important than the here and now; or to speak of a future fraught with deeper gloom or peril that we're not prepared to endure. Maybe it's not in anyone's best interests to fill your head with factoids and figures that, along with the requisite cash, get you that fresh cup of coffee or ice cold beverage; and try to slip a few inspirational points past you while doing so.
For now and the foreseeable future, the Message needs to stand on its own merit and not as filling in some sort of trivial sandwich. If you join me in this endeavor, I will pray that, by the grace of God, you will not be disappointed.
Until we meet again, may God be with you - and may God have mercy on us all...
+the Phoenix
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