blessings in the new year

We ended the year well. My wife had an eye procedure, and has had a good recovery. Our older daughter brought home her boyfriend for a portion of the Christmas holiday. Our younger daughter was here for almost a month (yeah!); she babysat alot, which gave her access to dinero, and socialized with her friends. Jack went to Cap Haitian to see his family there. I read E. Stanley Jones' Song of Ascents and A. J. Jacobs The Year of Living Biblically (lol). We saw a couple of movies, No Country For Old Men (A+), and Charlie Wilson's War (A-). We spent a few days in the mountains, which was nice, I returned to Providence for December 30 worship and an excellent sermon by John Arey, on December 31. We received enough money to fully fund the year's needs (yeah again!).

As I predicted, LSU defeated Ohio State in the BCS game (yeah yet again). As I watched I did have a problem with Allstate's sponsorship of the game, given their abandonment of many of the families in that area (New Orleans) after Katrina. We enjoyed New Year's Eve with friends at Lake Junaluska, and returned home the next afternoon, hoping to avoid the rapidly chillier weather and impending snow. Then I went back to work on January 2, a new year, 2008. In the past few days I have cooked chili for the homeless, given a meditation at a local retirement community, edited an essay for a forthcoming book to be published by Eerdmans on the role of the pastor-theologian, sat with a family in the midst of a difficult end of life decision, gotten a slow start on the mandated end of year statistical report, written an evaluation for one of our staffers who is being ordained this year, gone over a spreadsheet related to upcoming budgets, attended a couple of music director search meetings, prepared for a memorial service, and enjoyed two social gatherings, one with friends from a former church and a second with leaders from PUMC.

Thanks to the invitation of a good friend, I was able to hear Kirk Herbstreit speak (he was very good, and appropriately humble given the aforementioned BCS game). I liked his insights about the harsh culture of much sports talk--it is not enough to win, one also has to bash those who lose. Not healthy. A few minutes ago I watched some of the debacle that was UNC over NC State (sorry Wolfpack friends), and I plan to log a lot of time in the next two days watching the NFL playoffs (I would like to see the Panthers eliminated). I am probably pulling for the Packers or the Colts.

Jack flies into our city this evening, and then is off to Huntingdon College on Monday; we'll have a lunch for him tomorrow after the second worship service. My December 24 and January 6 sermons are posted at the PUMC website to the right (click "sermons"), and tomorrow's will be related to baptism (Acts 10. 34ff.). If you are interested, I also have a podcast posted at the Day One website, also posted to the right.

Oh well, as the title of the tv show of a few years ago had it, this is "my so-called life". Thanks for visiting the site, please explore the links to the right, and blessings in this new year.