My Top Stories from a Shrinky Dink Year

Years ago, Lesley had a toy called Shrinky Dinks. She would color plastic sheets of flowers, unicorns and such and then put them in the oven where they would quickly shrink to a fraction of their original size.

The Shrinky-Dink seems the apt symbol for the year just past. It was 12 months, a complete 365 days, fully colored in, yet somehow it seems to have shrunk in time. Was it not just a few months ago that we waved goodbye to fearsome 2020? How did we reach 2022 so quickly?

 

John Milton wrote, “Fly envious Time, till thou run out thy race.” It is that race that I’m feeling. Like Olympic sprinters, Time is getting faster and faster for me. Who can know when it will break the tape?

 

Yet as fast as 2021 zipped by, it was filled with remarkable things. I write this summary every year as a way of counting my blessings, slowing things down, and remembering what is truly important. So, once again, here is my compilation of my personal top stories from the year just past.

 

The Big Five-O

 

Our marriage turned 50 this past year. So, how did that happen, John Milton?

 

On July 2, 1971, at the Methodist Church in Dayton Tennessee, Janice walked the aisle and offered me her hand. At age 18 I was too young to understand the precious gift that was, but I understand it now.

 

Our anniversary gift to each other was an extended time together out West. We flew to Boise Idaho and worked our way to Jackson Wyoming, welcoming our children and grandchildren to join our adventure along the way.

Every so often Janice and I glance through catalogs and web ads for European tours and river cruises, but our hearts are always drawn to the Great American West. We have no bucket lists except to see big sky, breathe mountain air, and wade pure waters as often as God allows it. To us, castles pale next to the Tetons. Lavender fields fade compared to rolling grasslands of bison and elk.

 

Sharing these marvelous western sights with our children, Lesley and husband Daniel, Whit and wife Sarah, plus all their children—Sam, Charlie, Oliver, August and Pen—was a real joy, something we always wanted to do.

We played in Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone. We hiked, biked, fished, floated, swam, and rode gondolas, covered wagons and horses. We were shined on, rained on, stormed on, hailed on, chilled to the bone and swooning from heat, all in the same day. We saw bear, moose, elk, deer, eagles, bison, trout. We made many precious photographs and memories.

Time with our children and their children was all part of the anniversary gift, but most precious to me was the time with Janice exploring our favorite places with our favorite people. She remains the girl of my dreams, the love I don’t deserve, my unwavering partner, my fellow traveler, my forever bride.

 

The BX Food Pantry

 

Sometimes my faithful partner turns the tables and asks, “won’t you follow me?” This past year Janice got very involved in a new food distribution ministry at our church, and she recruited me to help a little.
 
On every third Wednesday the pantry opens to anyone who needs help with food, no questions asked. My job is to show up on that single day and load cars. My contribution is meager, but Janice’s seems large, at least from my perspective. I’ve been impressed at how much work it takes to acquire, stock, organize and box food for the growing numbers of people who come that one day. There are a lot of faithful women involved in the work, and it has been sweet to see how much Janice enjoys serving with them all.
 
The Brainerd Crossroads (BX) Food Pantry is different from some other pantries in that the foods are fresh, varied and plentiful. Some pantries rely on pre-boxed foodstuffs acquired from the USDA, but the BX team collects good food from a variety of sources. Each family leaves with custom boxes of breakfast foods, canned goods, fresh produce, eggs, bread and even some treats. Those who want it also leave with food for their souls.
 
Please note that I’m not dumping on other pantries. All pantry efforts are great blessings to the community, and they make sure families have access to food support every week of every month.

 

Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho, It’s Off to Work I Go

 

In my last year of college, as I completed my final credits toward a degree in English Lit, the question I heard most often was, “what are you going to do with that . . . teach?”
 
Now, as I approach my 70th year, the ubiquitous question is “when are you going to retire?” My honest reply is always, “I don’t know.”
 
The truth is I like working and I have a difficult time imagining my life without it. I am grateful that Joe Johnson and the team at The Johnson Group still want me around, and I find meaning in helping them accomplish good work, even if my role is limited.
 
In some ways this past year has been among the most difficult and humbling of my working life.  I’ve had to learn to do things differently from young, talented and experienced people like Spenser Kernea, Casey Kope and Tobey Hill. It’s not easy being the old dog enrolled in New Tricks 101. It might be one reason the year buzzed by so fast, but I think it has been good for me.
 
When am I going to retire? Tune in next year for an update.
 

Family Matters

 

Son Whit authored a new book that celebrates The Exit/In, a legendary Nashville music hall. As part of his research he was able to interview Rodney Crowell, Darius Rucker, Margo Price, John Hiatt and others. Sadly, John Prine passed from COVID-19 just before Whit was scheduled to interview him. The book is engagingly designed with a lot of great photographs. And, of course, it’s very well written.

Daughter Lesley continues to lead the United Way of Greater Chattanooga. This past year she stepped deep into the battle against COVID-19, helping to channel millions in emergency relief to not-for-profits and individuals who needed help the most. It was unheralded work performed mostly behind the scenes, but it was essential to our community.

Whit’s wife Sarah lost her mother last Fall, a death that affected us all. Stephanie was a buoyant personality, loved by so many. She was also a fighter, beating cancer twice before, but succumbing this time around. Stephanie would have been the first (and maybe the only) to comment on this blog. We miss her.
 

The grands are into so many fun things, and Janice and I enjoy trying to keep up.  Sam and Charlie are local, which makes it easier to attend their ball games and school events.  In Nashville, Oliver continues to grow as a man of letters, creating so many stories and books. Plus, he has taken up piano, for which he seems to have a natural gift. August also writes a great deal, and he is into building and growing things. He says he wants to be a farmer. I see a young Wendell Berry in the making.

And the youngest, lovely Pen, is a princess with a penchant for the culinary arts—a little barefoot contessa. She climbs a chair beside her mom and dad and helps with the meals and baking.

 

The Bible in 365 Days

 

At the end of last year, old friend Durie Andrews suggested we make a pact to read through The Bible in 2021. He enlarged the circle to include older friend Clark Taylor and new friend Scott Scutchfield. We agreed to purchase a special Bible that breaks the Word up into 365 daily segments. 

 

The four of us live in different parts of the country, so we also agreed to meet online for an hour a week to talk about what we were reading.
 
We were a faithful foursome. Though none of us could make every weekly meeting, we did all keep up with the reading, from Genesis to Revelation, and all the Psalms in between.
 

I’ve read The Bible through before and plan to do it again, but this book club approach made it easier and more meaningful. There is a lot about scripture that excites the soul, and there is a lot that boggles the mind. It was nice to have the perspectives of three brothers, each one from a different denomination. We Baptists sometimes need reminders that Methodists and Presbyterians love Jesus too.

 

A COVID Christmas

 

That this is the second Christmas haunted by the specter of COVID-19 is well documented and highly commented on. Our hearts break for families we know who have lost fathers, mothers and spouses to the virus. It is an unmeasurable tragedy.
 
As I read through the Old Testament and Revelation as part of my year in the Bible, I encountered language about the judgement of God that prompted thoughts of the virus. It begged the question—are we living through a time of judgement? Is God pouring out his wrath upon the world?
 
I believe that tragedy is always with us. We in the U.S. have been blessed for so long with peace, superior health care and plentiful diets, that most of us are desensitized to the diseases, famines, wars, and poverty that much of the world endures.
 
Jesus said to his followers, “In this world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have overcome the world.” Jesus knows that a sinful world can never be Candyland. His invitation to all of us is not to live a problem-free life, but to trust Him through whatever comes our way, be it health and happiness or disease and death. He promises to walk with us through it all, all the way to eternity. He wants us to trust that promise.
 
I believe the vaccines are an answer to prayer, but they are not the only answer. The accelerating breakthrough infections we are experiencing as 2021 closes demonstrate that our ultimate hope is not in medicine, it is in God and his gift of peace and eternal life though Jesus, which is available to all who simply accept it as real. God is good all the time.
 
Ours was a COVID Christmas. Daughter Lesley tested positive just prior to Christmas Day and we all waited for other shoes to fall.  As I write this everyone is well, but for the first time in over 40 years, Janice and I had no children or grandchildren in our home at Christmas.
 
The highlight of our celebration was participating in Brainerd Baptist Church’s Christmas cantata. Janice and I were narrators, but at the end we got to join with the choir in a powerful closing song called The Blessing. It reminds us that God is with us, and He is all around us, and He is for us. Someone captured it on video (below). If you are willing to invest 7 minutes in it, you will be blessed too.

The Blessing

 

Happy new year to all!