Thoughts on New Year's Day

Today I am 60; today my son is 33. New Year's Day has a special meaning in my family. But also years and birthdays ending in "zero" have a meaning all their own as well.

"Zero years" are years for looking back, taking stock, and looking ahead, pondering what the future may hold. I remember my 10th birthday when I counted up how old I'd be in the year 2000 and thinking how positively ancient that seemed. Now I look back on the year 2000 and still remember how relatively young I was then, that my hair was much darker--and there was more of it.

So 2008 is another "zero year" for me, personally; and a "zero year" professionally--it is the 20th anniversary of our ordination. (Inga and I were ordained together and have worked together most of these past 20 years as a clergy team.) In those 20 years we have moved--literally--across the continent and back, "from Maine to California," and "from border to Gulf" (Wisconsin/Michigan to Florida), pastoring churches and ministering in communities in all four "mainland timezones."

In these 20/60 years, there have been many opportunities to make acquaintances and friends everywhere we've been. I'm still in contact with some of my high school classmates--many the same kids from my church youth group. I'm still in contact with my college roommate, also clergy, who's a pastor of a church near enough that we can meet for lunch occasionally. My contact list still holds the names of clergy, church members--former and present--and folks from across the country who maintain contact and whose prayers and encouragement I deeply appreciate.

In an earlier post I commented on the saying that "The best things in life aren't things." Indeed, the best things in life are the people you gather to travel through life together, most cherished are those you are privileged to keep through the years, and yet more than that, those whose lives become utterly intertwined.

May God keep us and bless us in this year of grace, 2008.

More on Collateral Damage

In my earlier post on "Collateral Damage" and in my sermon on Sunday, Dec 30, 2007, with the same title, my intent was to focus in somewhat narrowly on the issue of murder and of softpedalling a particular form of murder by calling it "collateral damage."

My comments were not about warfare in general, nor about the justification for war, nor the fact that freedom comes with a price.

Yet I did intend to raise the question that, when we consider the price of liberty and measuring that cost in human lives, we must be able to look at ourselves in the mirror and know that we haven't bought our freedom at the cost of innocent lives.

Accidents happen, in peacetime and in war, but the morals and ethics upon which our society is supposed to be founded should/would argue that those "accidents" be strictly minimized and investigated and, if found that the acts are, indeed, wanton and murderous, prosecuted.