Top 8 Reads of 2015

I'm not very good/experienced at writing book reviews, but I would like to post a list with some of my favorite reads of the year. In lieu of writing short reviews (and pretending like I'm more of an authority on the subject than I am), I'm including a quote or so from each book that have stuck with me.

1. Wordsmithy by Douglas Wilson

Interesting people are interested people. Interesting writers are interested writers...As a writer, you should want to be interesting. The way to do this is by being interested.

Read like someone who can afford to forget most of what you read. It does not matter because you are still going to be shaped by it.

Real life duties should be preferred over real life tourism. Taking care of your preschoolers or being deployed with the Seventh Fleet is far to be preferred over purchasing a backpack and heading off to find America, or even worse, yourself...This kind of life experience is not distracting you from your appointed task of writing. It is, rather, the roundabout blessing of giving you something to say.

2.  Rejoicing in Lament by J. Todd Billings

In giving this kind of testimony of God's providence, we should not rush in and victoriously shout "This is God's will!" in a way that suggests that this calamity was what God intended at the foundations of creation. The Triune God is King, but Christ's kingdom is not yet uncontested. On the other hand, one is not left with the impotent response of saying, "God understands your pain, but couldn't do anything about it." With the psalmist, this approach thanks God for blessing, and also puts the lack of blessing at the door of the Almighty. Suffering and calamity are still under the rule of God, the sovereign King. The sufferer is not subject simply to whims of "chance," yet on the other hand God is not capricious or the author of evil. Instead the sufferer is in the hands of a good and powerful God. 

3. Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry

She had come into her beauty.

I wanted, as I would say to myself, to be in her presence, as if her presence were a fragrance, or a light that was within her and shone around her.

You have been given questions to which you cannot be given answers. You will have to live them out--perhaps a little at a time.

The brief, laughing look that she had given me made me feel extraordinarily seen, as if after that I might be visible in the dark.

4. Letters to an American Lady by C.S. Lewis

One never has been "independent". Always, in some mode or other, one has lived on others, economically, intellectually, spiritually. Who, after all, is less independent than someone with "a private income"--every penny of which has been earned by the skill and labour of others? Poverty merely reveals the helpless dependence which has all the time been our real condition. We are members of one another whether we choose to recognize the fact or not.

5. Creation Regained by Albert Wolters 

Earthly creation preceding the events recorded in Genesis 3 is like a healthy newborn child. In every respect it can be pronounced "very good"; but  this does not mean that change is not required. There is something seriously wrong if the baby remains in  its infancy: it is meant to grow, develop, mature into adulthood. Suppose now that while the child is still an infant it contracts a serious chronic disease for which there is no known cure, and that it grows up an invalid, the disease wasting its body away. It is clear that there are two clearly distinguishable process going on its body as it approaches adolescence: one is the process of maturation and growth, which continues in spite of sickness and which is natural, normal, and good; the other is the progress of the disease, which distorts and impairs the healthy functioning of the body...There are weaknesses to every analogy...Nevertheless, it can serve to make a significant point: the ravages of sin do not annihilate the normative creational development of civilization, but rather are parasitical upon it...the Lord does not forsake the work of his hands. In faithfulness he upholds his creation order.

6. Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community by Wendell Berry

The real work of planet-saving will be small, humble, and (insofar as it involves love) pleasing and rewarding. Its jobs will be too many to count, too many to report, too many to be publicly noticed or rewarded, too small to make anyone rich or famous. 

...if you are dependent on people who do not know you, who control the value of your necessities, you are not free, and you are not safe.

But there is a higher, juster love of which the sign is the meeting of the eyes.

She is speaking joyfully and fearfully of the self's suddenly irresistible wish to be given away. And this is an unconditional giving, on which, she knows, time and mortality will impose their inescapable conditions; she will have remembered the marriage ceremony with its warnings of difficulty, poverty, sickness, and death. There is no "safe" about this. This love has no place to happen except in this world, where it cannot be made safe.

7. Being Human by Ronald MacAulay

The confusion here arises from forgetting the distinction between true knowledge and exhaustive knowledge, true language and exhaustive language. In saying we can know or say certain things about God, we do not claim that we have said everything about God which can be said, or that we know all that can be known. This is true not only of our knowledge of God but even of our knowledge of other people or of the material world. Though incomplete, our knowledge of God is accurate because he has made himself known to us in the Bible and there described himself for us.

The great value God gives to the body is best shown by the physical resurrection. We will be physical for eternity...We long...not to be "unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life." Paul longs not for a less physical experience but for a better physical experience--one unmarred by sickness and decay.

8. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

Of course the children's eyes turned to follow the lion; but the sight they saw was so wonderful that they soon forgot about him. Everywhere the statues were coming to life. The courtyard looked no longer like a museum; it looked more like a zoo. Creatures were running after Aslan and dancing around him till he was almost hidden in the crowd. *

(My favorite part of this book was the whole scene where Aslan brings all of the animals who had been turned into statues to life. It is a wonderful picture of the ressurection.)

I love to watch
the wonder of a child
discovering the real world
full of flesh and blood
feather and fur
twig and leaf
right and wrong
good and bad

I love to watch
her fascination
as a ladybug's feet
brush over her hand
her adoring fingers
out to nurture and provide
nearly decapitating the thing

And I love to watch
his bubbly reverence
when a robin stops and
stares right back

Then there is the clumsiness
of maneuvering a small body
around sharp corners
and other moving things
every movement a journey
full of toils and snares

It is not long before the shock
of  injustice
and the way the body bleeds
begins to sink in
--even a paper cut
calls for the magic of a kiss and gauze

And far too many encounter
the deepest kinds of wounds
far too early
in their moving breathing lives

These are the wounds only heaven can heal
and I pray
to the Maker of the Sparrows
on behalf of the little ones
so fresh to the good creation
so fresh to the fallen world

All is Given

There are two basic approaches to life--one in which the world is a world of scarcity, given to us by the skinflint god, and the other in which the world is a world of endless possibilities, bestowed on us by a loving Father.

--Douglas Wilson

The older I get (which is not very old at this moment) the more I recognize how wrong my assumptions are about adulthood. I have a a hard time shaking off the feeling that my bootstraps must be given a hardy lift and I must become a lady of self-sustaining strength. Childhood is understood as a time of receiving and completely relying upon others. It's allowed and expected. But when the hour strikes twelve, then all must be labored for, all must be earned. Open hands are put to the plow. 

I think there's something to be said of the goodness of work. To work with your own hands and earn your own bread is a good thing. But in the process it's so easy to forget that every dollar you receive in exchange for your labor is still something given. It is manna from heaven supplied through the "mask" of your neighbor. 

I recently watched the new Cinderella movie. In a scene near the end, Cinderella's step mother exposes her own bitter view of the world. "Nothing is given," she snaps. In her eyes, all will be taken if she cannot snatch it all back, no matter what means she must use to do it. "Love is free," Cinderella interjects. And of course, she is right. Who can earn love? Who can earn relationship? Is the love of the Father not a gift we can simply humbly receive? Can we really make anything effective on our own? Can we really cause any seed we plant to bear fruit? 

All is given. All is of grace. The world we live in is one of abundance because we have a generous Father. We don't deserve or earn one drop of His good gifts. But He is a good God.

An environment of humility makes pride stick out as it should. Holiness is marked on the citizens of the Kingdom. Against a backdrop of love, selfishness is stripped of all its excuses and shown to be the implosion of a desire that eats you alive. When a life marked by the mind of Christ is the way of a People, sin is exposed as a leech to be crushed by The Heel. It is a deadly thing, but it is also very dull.

I recently picked up C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. While reading it, I noticed the dissonance between Edmund's behavior and those who follow Aslan. His behavior is distilled into the refrains of a child reaching out for all it can find while smugly screaming "Mine!" His mind is driven by the promise of more Turkish Delight and a position of power to hold over the heads of his siblings. He reasons away all warnings he has received about the witch in an effort to fulfill the desires and the dreams he has entertained about them. When he reaches the Witch's home, however, his visions of grandeur begin to fade. He is fed water and dry bread and commanded to join the Witch's hunt for his siblings in the snow.  Sin, the temptations of the Witch, promises to give glory and pleasure but only drains us dry. We become shrunk down and bent over, pinning after trinkets that dissolve into water and stale crumbs.

As the Witch and Edmund proceed on their journey, they are stopped by the emergence of Spring. Aslan has come "shaking his mane", breaking the silence of eternal winter with birdsong and crocuses. The Witch becomes frustrated as the mud forces them to get off her sledge and continue on foot, while Edmund's running siblings cannot contain their delight in the beauty of the changing landscape as they flee. The Witch held a degree of power over Narnia for a time, but Aslan is the real ruler over the land. Satan, like the Witch, has had some form of power over this land we inhabit. He would have us believe he is the true ruler, but we have the real King Jesus who came and will come again. He has brought the Spring of the New Kingdom, with a promise that it will be the "normal" of a New Heaven and a New Earth. The power of the enemy will melt away, and all who run to his castle will be disappointed. 

The marvel is that the true King has been the most humble one. While we were making fools of ourselves, fighting over moth and rust, Jesus came to earth and made us stick out. We were the grumbling selfish children, He was the selfless perfect servant. In His light, we are shown to be the blind, sick, deaf, and lost people we are. We would walk into our own destruction.  Except for when He comes to our rescue. Except for when His holiness exposes us, and instead of condemning He comes to cleanse and to cover with His blood and His righteousness. 

 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 

Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, 

did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, 

being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the 

point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is 

above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 

and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

(Philippians 2:3-11 ESV)

But your fulfillment in life will not come from how well you explore your freedom and keep your options open. That’s the path to a frazzled, scattered life in which you try to please everyone and end up pleasing no one.

Your fulfillment in life will come by how well you end your freedom.

-David Brooks

Come and hear, all who fear God,

And I will tell of what He has done for my soul...

But certainly God has heard;

He has given heed to the voice of my prayer.

Blessed be God,

Who has not turned away my prayer

Nor His lovingkindness from me.

Psalm 66:16, 21-22

This life is one of waiting, standing in the tension of the already-but-not-yet, but there are moments when God releases us from some forms of the waiting. For two years I have been waiting for God to give me some direction and give me some tangible target to pursue. I have not reached the target, but God has graciously given me a sphere to shoot at to start moving in the right direction. If you know me you know that I am painfully slow at making decisions, seeking to glimpse every possible angle and then some before I consider dipping my toe in the shallow end. But despite so much "new" being thrown in my direction the past few months, God has given me incredible clarity with my "yes"s and "no"s. Along with this has come a confidence of God's presence in the process--without that reassurance I would probably despair of any progress at all. 

I am thankful for these seasons where it becomes undeniable that His promises are true and His loving care and sovereignty are present. Clearly He loves me. Clearly He has heard my prayers. Clearly He loves me as the good Father and Shepherd that He is. I think these are seasons when God calls us to worship Him, write them down to remember them, and share them with others so that they may be encouraged. 

So much of life is full of fog. But Jesus is alive, my friend. And He has ears that hear and a hand full of power to tenderly and meticulously guide you along the path He's paved for you. You are not a forgotten sheep. He does not tell you to wait in vain. 

Being Led by the Shepherd

The Lord is my shepherd to feed, guide, and shield me,

I shall not want.

Your rod to protect and Your staff to guide, they comfort me.

Ever since graduation, I have convinced myself that because God's will is for my sanctification, and because that so often translates into suffering and dying to self, I must prepare myself for a career in something I don't like. It has been a battle to resist running to what is available and seen as least risky. And those options have a kind of holy sheen to them--after all, we want to be faithful servants, and being one does not always look romantic. But somewhere in the midst of this sorting through the will of God I have found myself believing that God intends to serve me a banquet of crumbs. He tells me it is good for me, so I subject myself to scooping up the dry morsels.

I believe I have missed something in this. Sometimes He tells us to drink a bitter cup, to walk through the valley of the shadow of death, but there must be some good in the wanting and gifting He's placed in me. If the talents He's given to me are really from Him, then I must seek out where and how to use them. Some of the gifts He's given to me have been expressed here and there, but I'm coming under the impression that He wants me to be more generous with them. I have fearfully held them and kept them mostly to myself, self-protecting myself from any failures by only letting them air out when the stakes are low. But I have begun to sense Him prompting me out of this place that feels undangerous and a little less insane. This movement feels a lot more like faith than a naive God-is-my-genie kind of movement. It feels more like holding the hand of my Father so I can be who He has made me to be.

 I do not trust myself in this, and like everyone else, I do not know what I am doing. My story is not so different from every other Christian's story. I do not have anything new to say--I can only say everything that's been said before, because there is much that has been said that we need to hear again and again. Some is new to us. Some are made new by old words. I will gladly join the choir of the ages, singing the same old hymn being sung with millions of tongues in a million ways, centered around the One who we will never tire talking about. Those are the words worth speaking.

   
 When it comes to dating, I can be something of a fearful cynic. I feel I must cushion my heart in case I will be greatly disappointed. Somehow I have expected that it is very likely that however much I like a man at the outset, it may very well turn out to be a show--that somehow, underneath, I will find thin roots. Perhaps it is influenced by the man-shaming preached from some pulpits, or from that horrible cultural idea that dehumanizes men by saying they only ever want "one thing". I can only imagine the heavy load this places upon men. It surely places a different kind of a load upon single women.

Despite all of this, there is a part of me that sustains hope. Surely every man is just as much a sinner as I am. But surely, too, there is a man oozing with the fruit of grace. Surely there are men who bear some fruit that dangles within eye-sight, but bear a greater number hidden beneath. Men who believe Jesus when he said the Father who sees what is done in secret will reward them. Men who bear the girth of their character like an iceberg. They may not feel they have anything to show, but for those allowed to enter in, they find the fingerprints of Christ covered all over the place. 

I'm praying for an "iceberg man". But then, I also am praying to be an "iceberg woman". 

By God's grace, may it be so.

     I think it is only human to want to sign dotted lines and put rings on fingers. I think it is only human to want to join lives with others for something of a long haul. In a world that largely keeps friends for entertainment or a felt need's sake, the turnover rate is high. The voices of career, adventure, and wanderlust are nearly irresistible to my generation. Much--sometimes rightly--is sacrificed in following these voices. Some things must be left behind if others are to be picked up. Some things must be lost if others are to be gained. 

There is something in the twenty-something narrative that suggests recent graduates go on a kind of wild, responsibility-free romp across the earth. Or at least we are encouraged with words like "Go do that now...while you are young. Go there now...while you can. Experience new things and take risks...before you are tied down with a spouse and children." Are our remaining years of youth to be spent building castles in the sand? If we tie ourselves to nothing, will we sow anything worth reaping?

When you are a child, life feels like an eternity. Changes come and go, but you have not noticed the bitter aftertaste of the transient lingering in your mouth. With age you begin to see Death and the breaking down of things becomes more clear. Slowly, the myth of an unbreakable world shatters. At some point, after being a mere spectator, you become the one being broken down--and everything around you follows the pattern. Earth feels less and less like the Eden you expected it to be, and the Heaven you expected to find merely flickers through moments.

Things fall apart. Life is full of things that feel solid but melt beneath our touch. But there are some things that stand unchanged. 

There are some seeds that grow into oaks. 

While we live in this age, we cannot escape the decay. But we can throw our energy, our time, our love, and our lives into Things unfading. We spend ourselves in hope of a harvest. 

We must touch a place on earth with a name on it. We do live in tents, but we must stake them among neighbors. We must know the names of the lost, and we must share bread and wine with a family in Covenant. 

There is a kind of joy in having a land to tend. There is a kind of joy in setting aside the romance of alternatives and committing yourself to the few right down your street. 
To know your place and dwell in it. 
To look into faces, studying their griefs and joys, and casting your net for the Good of them. 

And we will love without interruption

fearless of thorn, serpent, and pain

for the One who loved us first

will help us love without end

He was still young enough to believe in his strength.

                                                                      --Wendell Berry

The theme of weakness has been on my mind for the past month. My knee jerk reaction has been to run--if I am weak, failure and disappointment are sure to follow, so areas of exposed weakness have been fearfully avoided. But the Lord has been prompting me with this:

"Don't resist weakness." 

 Don't resist the strain of shifting all of your weight upon Another. Don't flee when you don't know what to do. Don't pack up when a Sunday School answer won't suffice, or when you find shadows in every shaft of light. Where others find silver-linings, my senses have become tuned to the bitter dredges found inside every toasting cup. The Kingdom is yet to come. Every moment groans with the wait.

In the meantime, we stand by His grace, trusting that His strength will be perfected there. It will come in when we are desperate, devoid of both halo and cape. It will come when we need it. And when our felt weakness stems from noticing a limp hand of faith, we can direct our gaze upon the Object and Source of our faith. We do not put our faith in faith--we put our faith in Christ.

Drawn Out of Isolation

I have been reading Proverbs over and over, and there are some verses that strike me each time around. One of them is Proverbs 18:1 "He who separates himself seeks his own desire, he quarrels against all sound wisdom". The Spirit has been using this verse to illuminate that I do this. I am guilty of self-isolation. I am guilty of hiding away from others.

"Community" is something of a buzzword in Christian culture right now, but the tangible implications of what that looks like doing and what that looks like giving up are still being worked out in me. I'm still growing into it, watching my limbs fill in the crevices and pushing my arms through sleeves. I'm a strong idealist and I revel in what that looks like, but I'm still in the present process of translating what obedience means at the eye-level of life. 

I have come to realize that I face many temptations to "separate myself" as an introvert. There is both a selfish temptation to hoard the things I have been given to steward and a fearful temptation to self-protect by failing to make myself known. As a single, it is easy to settle with focusing on whether my own "needs" are being "met", looking no further than the demands of the daily grind. The hoarding is a bit of keeping my life "neat" for myself in an effort to minimize dissonance and discomfort. But this bothers me. It bothers me that I am content with keeping up with work, paying bills, and having some fun here and there. Joy breaks into a boil when I recognize that I can exchange fleeting things in for eternal things. 

The self-protection is a little bit more subtle. It is possible to be "around" your church and fail to be in community. It is possible to be with your church for every meeting and still live unknown. I think we all want others to pursue us, for others to find questions that get to our deepest core. But there is a prideful and fearful kind of isolation that refuses to come outside unless they are pursued with extraordinary persistence and uncanny intuition. It is prideful because I think that I am so "special" that someone should be willing to go to such great lengths to draw me out. It is fear driven because I fear rejection from anyone who didn't prove their acceptance by pursuing me. It bothers me that I use more effort to preserve myself instead of allowing my soul to be revealed. It's only in that place that I can receive counsel and instruction, enjoy fellowship, and comfort others with the Comfort I've received where I've needed it most. It's only there that I can serve others and be served, living as one who is not simply a redeemed individual, but one who is a part of a redeemed people.

It is not good for man to be alone. I am so grateful that being a part of the church means that I don't have to be.

A Prayer for Fruitfulness

She was a woman who loved her hen flock and her garden and her flowers. Every day, from early spring to late fall, she made a little wander around her house and yard to see what was coming up or getting ready to bloom or blooming. She was always bringing home some plant or seed or root and "sticking it in the ground" to see if it would grow.

-Wendell Berry

Lord, make me a woman whose words and actions stick people in the dirt of the gospel, watching You make them grow. 

Let my life beget life.

 Make me into a woman who builds up with her hands and tongue rather than one who tears everything down. 

Make me into a cultivator, one who flours her hands for the work of kneading and watches life rise.

Friendship Love

I recently wrote a love poem that was intended to speak of two lovers. This poem is meant to speak of the friendship kind of love between a man and a woman--one that is often filled with a kind of tension but has a loveliness of its own. It is a love that builds up and prods the other on, hoping a holy vision for the other--but it is also often a temporary one.


I will eye your beauty
not as a treasure to keep
but as a light to behold
and blow a little brighter

I will turn my feet
When another comes 
to walk beside you
and you together 
turn to stare

I will count
every shared gasp
struck by the same vision
every shared laugh
giddy with perpetual Rescues

All of these
all of you
a gift received
a gift returned
till Heaven descends

The Gospel for Perfectionists

The large white space with the little blinking line on the top is very intimidating to me as I search for the best words to write tonight. I do  have a confession for you--my writing contains many confessions, some more consciously made than others. If you are a good friend, you probably already know this:

 I am a perfectionist.

That does not mean (obviously) that I am perfect. The problem often lies in my standard making and my response when I miss the mark. Sometimes I trace others' lines to follow, and sometimes I draw my own. Sometimes I think they will motivate me to excel, but they often leave me feeling paralyzed with a dense fog of guilt and self-condemnation surrounding me.

Listing the virtues of the ideal, preparing a dress too small for me to squeeze into, delineating a self airbrushed beyond recognition--these are counterfeit saviors, anchors set on shifting sand. Left to myself, I would be my own destruction.

Last Winter I started a study of 1-3 John with some friends. During that week, one verse struck me very deeply:

...And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world. (1 John 2:1-2)

The truth that Jesus is my propitiation was a life giving truth for me. I kept repeating it over and over in my mind, turning it over in my mouth and drinking it down like cool waters for my parched soul. Because Jesus is my propitiation, I do not have to beat myself up and stand slouched over with guilt. He was the one who was beaten up on my behalf. And the Father took my sin and its penalty far more seriously than I ever have. Even if I tried to go to extreme measures, starving myself or cutting my body in an effort to make up for my failure, that would never amount to the cost demanded. It would all amount to pennies in a piggy bank the size of a sea. But the Father understood the full penalty of sin, and Christ willingly bore it.

This old gospel refrain is what my heart needs on a regular basis. May we walk more fully in the light of Christ our propitiation and advocate.

When we emerged on to the busy High with the traffic streaming past, we shook hands, and he said 'I shan't say goodbye. We'll meet again.' Then he plunged into the traffic. I stood there watching him. When he reached the pavement on the other side, he turned round as though he knew somehow that I would still be standing there in front of the Eastgate. Then he raised his voice in a great roar that easily overcame the noise of the cars and buses. Heads turned and at least one car swerved. 'Besides,' he bellowed with a great grin, "Christians NEVER say goodbye!'
-Sheldon Vanauken (talking about C.S. Lewis)

Where I Write a Love Poem

I'm not much of a poet, but I wrote a poem the other day. Although it is not targeted towards any man, it captures--in a small way--my own reflections on what real love is like.

I don't want to love you
At first sight

I don't want to love you
For the charm of your grin
Or your polychromatic laughter

I don't want to love you
Like I dreamed I would love you
"You", one of "them",
One of those "hippies" or "readers" or "men with a pen"
Or even one of those "blue-eyed" wonders

I want to love you
Where only grace can take us

I want to love you
With a sculptor's gaze

I want to love you
With the love that counts hairs

I want to love
you.

We were not made in God's image for nothing. The child's preference for sweets over spinach, mankind's universal love for the toothsome rather than the nutritious is the mark of our greatness, the proof that we love the secular as He does--for its secularity. We have eyes which see what He sees, lips which praise what He praises, mouths which relish things, because He first pronounced them tov. The world is no disposable ladder to heaven. Earth is not convenient, it is good; it is, by God's design, our lawful love.
Another toast then.

-Robert Capon

Fall was a difficult season for me. I was living too much in that season. The slow decay, the slipping away of life-as-we-know-it, the groggy-eyed sun's slow crawl over the earth--I took all of this far too much to heart. I took it far too personally. It felt like the world had turned into a sephia film in slow-motion.

Then Winter came, and C.S. Lewis's words were like a refrain in my heart: "It's always Winter, but never Christmas." Somehow, with the nights infringing on the waking hours, and the air commanding my body to be still, I felt the significance of Christmas in the heart of Winter. It is not until we've sunk to the bottom, our lungs emptied of air and our eyes of light, that we find deliverance.

Now I stand on the cusp of the New Year. I've never liked New Years. I've been quick to reduce it to short-lived resolutions and tasteless diet foods. But after a year with an extended autumn, after a year of limbo and a blurring of my vision, I am ready for a new context.

The rhythms and repetitions of life can be a comfort at times, the propelling tracks that help you move in one direction. But when you stare at the lines on the road, you can become a little dazed, forgetting you're heading Home. Without a destination, we might have some fun, but we are just entertaining ourselves to death. We are just parading to our grave.

But with the turning of the calendar page, with that new shiny 5 pinned onto the end, I am reminded that time moves in a horizontal line. The earth may be pacing in circles, but its orbits are numbered. They say that history repeats itself, that there is nothing new under the sun, but with the deliverance born in our winter, a narrative was fleshed out that would change our past, present, and future. The bad news is the old news we've lived inside. But the New has broken into the Old, and we have been given some very Good News. There is a Resolution to come by the One who will make all things New.