Every year, I try to pause and reflect on the year we are leaving behind. The goal is to say goodbye to the ones who left us, let go of the burdens that should not move forward, and reflect on the events that should reshape us.
2020 was filled with disasters on an epic scale. We became numb to the numbers of sick and dead. Horrible events followed each other so quickly that they blended together into a toxic cloud that constantly hung over us. But in the midst of it all, hope wouldn’t die. It continued to rise out of the ashes as we held onto faith that better days lie ahead.
Here is my summary of 2020.
Glad to Leave Behind
This list could consume my post. There are so many things we want to bury in 2020. COVID-19 infected 82 million people worldwide and claimed the lives of 1.8 million. Quarantine and lockdown overwhelmed the popular vernacular, exploding out of their previous relegation to hospital or prison settings. Fires in Australia and California destroyed a 50-million-acre area the size of South Dakota. Thirty tropical storms set a hurricane-season record.
The entire world went into a recession. The U.S. unemployment rate set all-time records. Churches closed their doors when we needed them most. Nobody can count the number of businesses that have permanently shuttered.
Dark Sides of Our Humanity Were Exposed
The president was impeached. Extremists made plans to kidnap the governor of Michigan. A bomb was detonated in downtown Nashville. Stories of unarmed black men dying at the hands of police filled the news. Protesters’ messages were lost during the wanton destruction of many of our cities. The Boys Scouts sought bankruptcy protection due to sexual abuse lawsuits.
QAnon emerged from the darkness of our hearts. We got scared and hoarded toilet paper and groceries instead of sharing with our neighbors. Domestic violence, depression, and alcohol abuse rates skyrocketed when our freedoms were curtailed.
Signs of Hope Emerged
Voter turnout in national elections hit an all-time record high. The country stood together to declare that it is time to end systemic racism. Nurses, teachers, and other front-line workers became celebrated heroes. Food distribution programs overflowed. Millions viewed as John Krasinksi shared Some Good News. We anxiously watched an owl being saved from a Christmas tree in Rockefeller Plaza.
Voices of Inspiration Were Silenced
Ruth Bader Ginsburg defended her closing case. John Lewis marched his last mile. Chuck Yeager explored his final frontier.
Actors, Musicians, and Athletes Who Inspired Us Were Laid to Rest
Alex Trebek and Regis Philbin hosted their finales. Kirk Douglas, Sean Connery, Brian Dennehy, and Jerry Stiller have become stories themselves. Little Richard, Kenny Rogers, Bill Withers, Eddie van Halen, Charlie Daniels, and Charlie Pride are now echoes. Kobe Bryant, Gale Sayers, Joe Morgan, and so many other exceptional athletes have played their final games.
It is hard to comprehend the past twelve months or put it into context for anyone who wasn’t there. Before the New Year is in full swing, I want to pause to reflect on the good and the bad, as well as the people who inspired me or made me laugh. All of it is now part of our collective history.
In the face of so much change, how will I be different in 2021?
WIth each person that passes into eternity, I have to decide what part of them to keep alive. For every person who is marginalized or victimized, I have to choose if I will take up their cause. What lessons have I been taught that I must now turn and teach to a new generation? Who will I share my remaining time with, showering them with the same love I’ve seen the Father pour out?
2020 may be over, but it will never be forgotten. God help us use it to build a better tomorrow.
My final act of this year will be to bury the past 365 days. It is a symbolic way of laying down burdens who have no place where we are going, of mourning the people who will be missed, and reflecting on who I will become.
The picture at the beginning of the post is my “burn boat” for this year. I will write a letter of all the things I am leaving behind as I enter the new year and place it into the boat. Several of my friends will be with me and do the same thing. As the boat is pushed into the pool and lit on fire in Viking style, 2020 will disappear in smoke as I pray for God to guide my future paths.
If I left out a special moment or person that impacted you, I hope you will add them into the Comments below.
Last week, Erin and Josh moved out of the one-bedroom apartment they had been in since their wedding. As newlyweds should, they spent most of the last year focused on each other. Now they are looking for extra space to accommodate their expanding lives.
Their new place is 60% larger than the previous one. It has room for a dining table, hobbies, and office space. It also has lots and lots of space for their houseplants that fill a space to rival a tropical rainforest. Erin has been giggly for weeks just thinking about it.
I offered to help coordinate the move. My hope was to wrap the young couple in community support by helping them carry some of the load and once everything was securely inside, to pray together over their new home.
It was a simple project compared to the dozens of others I’ve coordinated, except this one took place in a pandemic. The dates changed unexpectedly. Some of the people had COVID-19 symptoms and were a question mark for being able to help. Whether or not to wear facemasks became a question.
I spent a lot of time considering details. I asked if they had enough boxes, whether they needed to borrow a tape gun, what they should pack vs carry by the armload. I checked frequently on whether or not the manager had confirmed the date and peeked through the windows of the new place to see if any surprises lay inside.
I built a new dining table for them and refinished chairs for them to use. I offered to build shelving for extra storage. I wanted to do anything I could to make their new place perfect.
Somewhere along the line, Kim warned me to back off and let them control their own destiny. At the time, I didn’t listen. I pushed her counsel to the back of my mind and went scurrying about my details.
Just before moving day, I had a troubling dream. It was one of those dreams that you can’t shake loose when you awaken.
I was living in my childhood home in the same bedroom I had when I was 16 years old. I was going about my routine getting ready for the day when I opened the closet door to get my clothes. I looked down and saw that the closet floor was falling apart. Not only was the carpet gone, but the subfloor had holes in it that revealed the basement below. The floor joists were also damaged. It was a mess.
After recovering from the initial shock, I started to make a plan for repairing the damage. When I told my dad about my proposal, he pointed out potential problems and left me to start over developing a new course of action. Time after time, the same thing happened. No matter what idea I had, it wasn’t good enough.
Although I had never done this specific job before, I felt confident in my ability to figure it out. However, my patience was exhausted by seemingly endless conversations and Dad would never release me to do the work. His well-intentioned criticism was as persistent as my desire to do things by myself.
My frustration level climbed with each concept I proposed that Dad found some reason to challenge. The dream became one of those endless loops that seem to last all night.
I woke up in my bed in my house, but still filled with the same resentment that had haunted my dream. As I got my day started, the emotions I carried into my waking world simmered just under the surface. When Kim woke up and came downstairs, I told her about my dream. I described my exasperation that my father would never just accept that I had things under control.
When I looked at her confused expression, I realized that all of it had merely been a bad dream. My dad doesn’t overreach his boundaries or constantly meddle in my affairs. There isn’t anything that he has prevented or even discouraged me from moving forward with.
It has been thirty years since I stepped out on my own. Back then, I wanted so badly to emerge from my family’s shadow and begin to do things my way. It was not because their lives or solutions were bad or wrong, but I wanted to grow up. Their offers for help were a chain around my leg that snapped taut whenever I tried to run free.
As those memories flooded back, I began to recognize the same expression on my kids’ faces. It is especially evident with James. When I offer him advice, he looks back at me as if he wants to plug his ears and yell “Bah, Bah, Bah, Bah!” until I stop talking. Most of the time he disappears from the room within a few moments.
Erin’s response is different than James’s, but the message is the same. She quietly ignores my advice and waits for me to become weary in my efforts. Now that I think about it, she did that several times when I was “helping” her plan her move.
The slow realization began to sink in that my dream was a warning. What I had suppressed when Kim told me to back off and give the kids freedom on their moving day had escaped through my subconscious. I had only viewed the dream wrong. In it, I was the son who had now become the father.
Ultimately, her move was a success. Their new place is perfect and with the help of some fantastic friends – Steve Hermann, Rick Clark, and Hank Cates – their keys to the old apartment were ready to turn in by 5pm the same day.
The kids are becoming the leaders of tomorrow. Upgrading an apartment is a small step toward setting a broader vision for their lives. By pitching in to ensure their success, James is setting aside his own priorities and placing others above himself. One day at a time, one decision at a time, they are learning to fulfill God’s command in Genesis 1:28 to be fruitful, to subdue the chaos of the world, and to remake it in God’s image.
It is still early and they have a long way to go, but the smell of change is already in the air. The seeds they have begun to plant are showing small sprouts emerging through the soil. Soon enough, they will take my place as the leaders of a generation.
I will have to learn to offer assistance generously but to be satisfied if they decline. Hopefully, they will find ways to involve us in their plans. They wil have to learn in their own way though.
For now, it will start with surrendering control of our Christmas schedule to them. Because their work schedules are more pressing than ours, they will choose when we open gifts and when (or even if) we have a formal meal. It is a small thing, but it’s a beginning. I trust them to figure it out and watching them is better than getting my preferences.
Exiting 2020 and entering 2021, more of my thoughts are drifting to how to help the kids establish their lives. I have accumulated a lifetime of wisdom, skills, and other resources that I would love to make available to them. As my dream reminded me, it is a lot harder to help than it seems at first glance.
Hopefully, the kids will begin to see that my offer to give them full access to anything that is mine isn’t an effort to control them. It is a sign that I have faith in them. We will have to proceed at a pace that satisfies us both.
That’s just how it is with God, right? He is ready to throw open the floodgates and give us the full authority of his name. We aren’t ready yet, and we resist him while we fight to do things our way. But He is patient with us too. One glorious day, we will find our peace in full communion with him. Then everything He has will be ours.
I am a Facebook guy. I enjoy a comfy chair and spending time scrolling through screen after screen looking for things that capture my attention. It makes me part of a cozy community of 2.7 billion people worldwide who visit the site/app each month.
For all of its popularity, Facebook is also widely criticized. Many people credit it with being part of society’s problems with how we view each other and ourselves. Others believe it is part of a social reprogramming effort. They avoid it because of its powers of broad reach and ability to profoundly influence the minds of its users.
I believe that Facebook is incredibly powerful, but not from a conspiracy-to-alter-reality kind of perspective. It has a unique ability to immerse you in whatever your eyes are drawn to.
If you scroll through your feed, you may expect to find update after update from your “friends”. My last count shows that these posts account for 50% of my feed. The rest is advertisements. It is an incredible amount of paid content and exceeds any other platform that I can think of. If you don’t believe me, count yours. From the people I’ve seen who tried, they got similar ratios.
In order to keep people engaged in all these commercials, Facebook seems to closely monitor which posts you pause on and gives a special priority to any that you click. They match what will show up in your future stream based on what captured your attention previously. It is a powerful way to captivate audiences and influence the way you think.
Which gave me pause to think. Could Facebook be used for good? Could the world’s largest social media platform become a source of encouragement and inspiration that raises the spirits of its users? Is it a tool of enormous power that could be good or evil based on how it is used?
I put it to the test.
As anyone who regularly reads my posts is aware, I am a work in-process. God has done a lot in and through me, but he has a lot of work left to do. I am painfully aware of many of my shortcomings. This blog is an effort to improve me and the world, making it more like the kingdom God has imagined.
If Facebook can adapt to my habits, can it be used to build me up? Can it find and stream content that encourages me?
One at a time, I began to avoid images or messages that I don’t want to surround me. I tried to scroll as quickly as possible past anything condescending, judgmental, angry, or mean. Then I took the time to look at and reflect on things that give me pleasure, hoping that Facebook would do the hard work of figuring out a pattern and finding more content for me.
It has worked. Over time, a few themes began to emerge. Anyone who views my stream would see a pattern that reflects my struggles and what I am choosing to do about them.
A few screenshots from today’s feed indicate who I aspire to be.
I love to build things. It is one of the ways God allows me to influence the world. However, I am not highly creative and require a lot of inspiration. I love to watch people who have amazing talents build things to see how they do it. Then I make mental notes to copy later. Facebook found Crafty Panda and similar sources who show in fast-motion how a project was completed. It is amazing to see people all over the world build beautiful, amazing things in less than 5 minutes. It encourages me to pursue big dreams.
I am a fan of “the best”. I love to see the amazing abilities God has given to people in all kinds of different areas, whether it is athletics, arts, entertainment, or industry. Stuff like Mental Floss introduces me to the odd facts that humanize these people of enormous talent. I already know their accomplishments, but this presents their humanity. It shows me how much we have in common and reminds me that God can do just as much through me.
I love superheroes. They possess enormous power and are dedicated to using their abilities to save others regardless of the risk to their own lives. They shun lives of opulence and choose to place themselves between unfathomable danger and people they may have never met or who have tried to harm them. I know that they aren’t real, but their creators are. They imagined the noble heart of a Superman and a Batman whose pain drives inspires him to protect his city. They tell stories of people who step into their moments and make a difference. I want to live like that.
There have been so many mornings that Kim comes downstairs and says “You’re listening to the Crazy Russia Hacker again, aren’t you?” It’s a rhetorical question, she knows his voice almost as well as I do. I love how he look at the little things that surround him differently. Some people are blessed with the ability to shake off preconceived notions and look at things in a new and different way each day. I want to see my life as surrounded by infinite possibilities, where any small thing can be a solution or an adventure. I want to find wisdom and joy in the everyday objects and situations of my life.
Movies have always had a special place for me. They were first a family outing when I was a child then a getaway with my teenage friends or on a date night, and later as a popcorn-filled treat with my kids. I love to laugh and cry, to sit in breathless anticipation, and believe beyond hope that everything will work out in the end. These reminders keep the joys of my past within easy reach, as available as a warm blanket on a cold night.
Certainly not the least, but sometimes the hardest to find, are the special moments in the lives of people I care about. They are glimpses into the hearts and souls of the ones I am blessed to walk this life with. These are vitamins for my day, fortifying me for the challenges that lie ahead. I am profoundly thankful to be able to share these fleeting moments that happen in a glimpse and are too-soon gone. Loving my neighbor is so much easier when I get to see their love of life.
This is not an advertisement for Facebook or any other social media. Use it or don’t use it. It is a reminder that our eyes are the windows to our soul and that the images we fill them with will determine how we view the world around us. The inputs we receive from the people, television programming, news feeds, and social media in our lives all come with a choice – Is this what I choose to see in life?
Older and wiser people continue to remind me to select what I allow into my life and not become a victim of it. Years of careful selection are like choosing the stones to build your home. It takes time to find just the right pieces, but their effect is enduring.
Guard your heart above all else, for it is the source of life. Proverbs 4:23
I used to read this verse as a warning of things to avoid. Now I see it as an encouragement to choose those things that I surround my heart with. I want to select the sentinels of my soul with intention.
There is so much good out there. Seek it like a lost treasure. Allow it to envelop and influence you. Let it course through your veins and build you into the person you want to become.
Then go out and become someone else’s positive feed.
This past week, one of the kids got sick. Over the next day or two, all of us had a touch of whatever bug it was. The low-grade fever, headaches, and other mild symptoms wouldn’t have gotten much interest in another time, but this is the winter of COVID. While we waited for testing appointments and results that ultimately came back negative, I decided to work from home and avoid any risk of spreading something.
Kim works half-time and is based out of the house. She has a real office with a glass-top desk and a chair with wheels. A bookcase full of supplies and decorations adorns the back wall and a guest chair that has never been used sits quietly in the corner. It is professional.
When I work from home, my conditions are more primitive. We have plenty of empty space since the kids moved out, so I grab a folding table from my workshop in the garage then scrape off the top layer of paint and glue and haul it into a spare bedroom. I sit on a wooden chair that is borrowed from the dining table and use a bath towel as a seat cushion. Whenever Kim tells me it’s ugly, I shrug and say “Eh. It’s temporary.”
This week, I overheard a call between her and a co-worker. Apparently, it was someone she had worked with for a while, but their interaction had all been email. They had never spoken to one another on the phone or met face to face. After the initial, short introductions, I heard Kim pause for a moment while she listened.
Then she said, “I know. You don’t sound like I had imagined either.”
I didn’t think much about it at the time. We all know how it feels to have an imagined face or voice that you associate with someone, only to find out how wrong that preconceived notion was when you encounter them. It’s a simple reminder of how you don’t really know people.
In a strange way, I think that is why God made Christmas the way he did.
The Old Testament God is usually presented as distant and removed. The people of Israel seldom hear directly from the Father. Whatever messages they receive come through one of the prophets. Unfortunately for the prophets, the messages aren’t usually for them, they are merely a vehicle to deliver a reminder, warning, or glimpse of the future to whichever person or group they are instructed.
When the people of Israel heard the word of God coming out of a person’s mouth, they are left to imagine how He really talks and what He looks like. Kind of like Kim’s co-workers had to guess from her email messages.
It wasn’t always like that. In the beginning, He took long walks with Adam & Eve in the garden (Gen 3:8-9). They knew him in a way that no one else would for a long time. They talked with him and got to hear not only his words, but the way he pronounced each word in ways unique to him. They could hear the emotion. They could see his emotion when he spoke and see the way He tilted his head when He listened to them.
They were the last to casually spend time with him, enjoying his full presence. They knew him in a way their children never would.
It wasn’t God’s choice to speak to us through a prophet, but our sin made it necessary. How badly he must have longed for things to be like they were in those first days when He excitedly created us in His image so that we could enjoy time together. How his heart must have ached to be separated from his children.
Suddenly, there was a necessary distance between us. His majesty became terrifying to us. In our brokenness, His infinite love became overshadowed by the ultimate power He yielded while he created universes or swallowed them up again. Drowning in guilt, we could not embrace a supreme being. We could be subjects of the King, but not family.
We weren’t ready for a relationship with an all-powerful God, so He built a plan that would let us become reacquainted. He found a way for us to hear the sound of his voice again, to walk with him in the cool of the evening, to be mutually fulfilled by each other.
He sent us his son, the heir to his glory, but he was not to arrive on a clap of thunder as the heavens split open. Instead, he came as a newborn baby. The same son who spoke life into the universe made himself vulnerable, requiring us to feed him, give him clothing, and shelter him from the weather. He became weak so that he would be approachable.
It took decades of him living quietly among us, following our daily routines, and behaving like we do before we were ready to listen to the thoughts of his heart. After countless, long years had passed, he was finally able to once again walk with us in the cool of the evening. He was able to talk with us face to face like he had in the beginning.
Imagine the joy that filled the Father’s heart when when he held hands with Mary as they walked through a busy market. Imagine how much he enjoyed sitting quietly by the sea with Joseph, listening to the waves and soaking in the peace of the moment. Imagine his delight dancing at a wedding in Cana.
It was the beginning of the restoration.
To every scholar that insists that Jesus was about theology, I would counter that there are infinite ways that a perfect sacrifice could have been made. God chose the one way that allowed him to be among us again. It only lasted for a while but gives us a glimpse of His true nature and what eternity will look like.
This December, I hope everyone will take the time to read the Christmas story in the second chapter of Luke. Consider how much God must have wanted to be with us to humble himself completely. Consider the patience he showed setting aside his displays of raw power to live in a small town doing menial labor for years while he waited for his chance to bring us together. Consider the joy he felt finally being able to walk with the disciples, speak to the crowds, lay his hands on the sick, and embrace the people he loved.
Christmas isn’t about religion. It isn’t about church services. It isn’t about a distant deity who demands your personal surrender. It isn’t the story of an elf who shows up one night a year shrouded in secrecy only to disappear again.
It is the story of someone who has done everything to be with you. It is a reminder of a love so deep that it is worth recreating the universe to make it whole again. It is an invitation for you to open your heart and be surprised that God’s voice doesn’t sound like you expected.
