Just thinking…Christmas Eve 2016

Remember the popular 60’s song, “It Was a Very Good Year”?  Well, 2016 wasn’t one of them.  As of this writing, in the U.S. alone, 3,233,871 people have died ranging from two who died while playing Pokeman 2 and 1,093,982 lives were lost to abortion.  There were 11, 514 gun deaths, 24 domestic mass shootings, 49 murders by Islamic terrorists and 6000 who died in accidents caused by texting while driving.  For more statistics, go to http://www.romans322.com/daily-death-rate-statistics.php.  Much has been said about celebrities who died in 2016.  One list includes 163 names ranging in age from 27 years old to 99 years old.  (http://wgntv.com/2016/12/28/full-list-of-celebrity-deaths-in-2016/)  Only two touched me personally, but many among my friends, family and acquaintances lost loved ones in this past year.  In sixty-eight years, many people who were influential in my life are beyond the reach of a phone call, personal visit or an email.  Whatever I am today was molded by those people.  I miss their encouragement, their wisdom, their humor, their love, the sounds, touch and smell of them.  

I have been greatly discouraged by recent events.  I believe that our country is in great peril.  This year has witnessed the death of truth.  It has been the year of irrationality.  We have seen, in America, the greatest ugliness and decline in civility in my lifetime. The divisiveness, rejection of facts, a pervasiveness of paranoia and fear, the worship of riches, the rise of materialism and the decline of humanity are glamorized in media and common discourse.  Everywhere you look you find wars, inhumanity practiced on a grand scale, and a callous insensitivity even among Christians.  I hear Cain’s cynical voice echoing down through history asking, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”.  

More than ever, we are indeed our brother’s keeper and our brothers are not just those who are blood relation, not just our family, not just the people we like, not just those who look, speak, act and think like us, but the world.  As Americans, we lost sight of that in 2016.  I’m concerned.  I’m upset and indignant.  I’m discouraged.  I’m angry at God, the church, our government, the American people, our media, my family, my friends and at myself. “Make America Great Again” is one of the most egregious slogans ever coined.  Trump is a demagogue, a tyrant, a bully, a world class liar and deceiver.  

Even so, 2016 wasn’t ALL bad.  America today is better than it was eight years ago by almost every economic index you can name.  In many ways it’s better than it has ever been…period.  After over a year, I finally was able to begin playing trumpet and other wind instruments again once my gums healed from the botched tooth extractions.  I’m so grateful for that but also grateful for my alternative musical experiences that I had as a result.  I’ve enjoyed another year of wonderful friendships.  Alberto was able to finally go back to Costa Rica to visit with his family and friends there and in March of 2017 we plan to be there to celebrate his 50th birthday.  Though we have been seeing each other since 2004, we finally made it official last year and celebrated our one year anniversary in August. I went back to Illinois for my 50 year class reunion in October and had a great time visiting with some of the Danville and Indiana relatives plus seeing classmates I hadn’t seen in 50 years.

I’m grateful for those who are still in my life — my grandchildren, children, aunts and uncles, cousins, numerous friends and associates, Lynnette, Alberto and a long list of others dear to me.  I go forward into 2017 knowing that some of those may not see another Christmas.  Knowing that the names on that short list may even include my own, I want to live in this coming year in a thoughtful, reflective, meaningful way.  I want to be silly and frivolous and I want to be caring, merciful, generous and positive.  In the book of Ephesians, the Apostle Paul wrote extensively about the sort of life that we should live.  Here are some of the things that he listed:

• I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beseech you to walk worthily of the calling wherewith ye were called

• with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering

• forbearing one another in love; 

• giving diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 

• be renewed in the spirit of your mind

• put on the new man, that after God hath been created in righteousness and holiness of truth

• Look therefore carefully how ye walk, not as unwise, but as wise;

• redeeming the time, because the days are evil

• Wherefore be ye not foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

• And be not drunken with wine, wherein is riot, but be filled with the Spirit;

• speaking one to another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; 

• giving thanks always for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father

• subjecting yourselves one to another in the fear of Christ.

Well, that’s a lot to live up to!  But let’s say that you aren’t a Christian, or a believer of any sort.  Let’s say that you aren’t in tune with your spiritual nature or that you renounce it’s very existence.  That list is still a recipe for successful living.  

I pray for a great awakening in 2017, a return to reason, to truth, to facts, to reality.  The problem is not one of economics; it’s a spiritual blindness.  It’s a lack of love and consideration, it’s one of honesty, of morality, of ethics. It’s one of decency.  May we, as Americans and as people of the world hold up those values that make us, not richer, but better brothers and sisters, better neighbors, better citizens, better human beings.