And so we embark on a new year: 2024! I think it is a good habit to pray along with Jonathan Edwards at this time:
I launch my bark on the unknown waters of this year, with Thee, O Father as my harbour, Thee, O Son, at my helm, Thee O Holy Spirit, filling my sails. Guide me to heaven with my loins girt, my lamp burning, my ear open to Thy calls, my heart full of love, my soul free.
Give me They grace to sanctify me, Thy comforts to cheer, Thy wisdom to teach, Thy right hand to guide, Thy counsel to instruct, Thy law to judge, Thy presence to stabilize. May Thy fear be my awe, Thy triumphs my joy.
It is also worth re-reading Kevin DeYoung on the subject of not trying to be “with it” in the new year. “Give up trying to keep up. Let the pop culture whirlwind pass you by. Be wonderfully ignorant of the world of what’s happening now. Don’t worry, the important news will still get to you. But hopefully most of the other “news” won’t.”
Good grief, I couldn’t agree more.
And remember, If you’re still alive and breathing, Praise the Lord.
Our New Year’s Eve party was a very low-key family get-together. We never even got the 45s out for a dance party. The boy and his family were pretty tired from their early morning trip home from Sarasota, but they were game and joined us for pizza and assorted dips.
We managed to do our ‘movie clip night’ and I thought you might be interested in what we all chose to share. (It’s all a plot where I am trying to whet the younguns’ desire to watch these great movies in their entirety when they are a little older.)
I opened things up with the car chase scene from Bullitt (1968).
The wee bud was, of course, enthralled and recognized the bad guy’s car as a Dodge Charger. He also knew who “McQueen” was. I told him I thought he kind of looked like him and he was pleased. (I will note that Lottie thought this car chase was not quite as good as the car chase in The Gnome-Mobile.)
Daughter #1 chose the musical interlude from Rio Bravo (1959)…
…which led to the boy’s choice of another musical interlude from Hatari (1962)…
For daughter #3 we played the classic intro to Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1962)…
The bud chose the Genie-is-released scene from Aladdin (1990)…10,000 years and such a crick in the neck!
Then I chose a famous scene from The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)…
Daughter #1 chose another classic musical interlude from Pillow Talk (1959)…
And then we finished up with Lottie’s choice of a song from Frozen II…
By this time the little bud was falling sleep and we wound things up so that they could hit the road and go to bed. Daughter #1 stayed and we watched Last Holiday (2006) with Queen Latifah and L.L. Cool J. which is our New Year’s tradish.
I have been saving this meme to use on New Year’s Eve…but oh well. I am a day late and a dollar short.
Yesterday we had a great sermon by our guest preacher, Dr. Dan Doriani, who has been filling in some until our new senior pastor starts next month. He preached on 2 Timothy 4:1-8, which certainly speaks to us in the 21st century, and gave us some advice for welcoming our new pastor.
I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: 2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. 3 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, 4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. 5 As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
6 For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. 7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 8 Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.
I thanked Dr. Doriani and shook his hand, but what I wanted to say was, “I am reminded of the time the truck driver approached John MacArthur in a diner along some highway and said, “Are you John MacArthur?” and Rev. MacArthur said, “well, yes, I am.” And the truck driver said, “Can I hug you?”
So here we are: it is the last Friday in 2023 and the last weekend. Do you have New Year’s Eve plans? The boy and his family will be back from Florida on Sunday. We plan to get together and have a dance party. Daughter #1 will be spinning 45s from the 1980s. We also are planning something new. Everyone will choose a favorite scene from a favorite movie to present. I will have a hard time choosing one, so being the hostess, I will pull rank and show several. I think that’s fair. Can you guess what they might be?
Also tonight the Cotton Bowl is on TV so we will be watching the Mizzou-Ohio State match-up. Since we actually kind of care, this does not bode well for Mizzou.
Well, although it seems like western civilization is falling to pieces around us, we can take solace in knowing this is not the first time this has happened. I prefer to focus on the many blessings which have poured down on me this year.
Baby Ida was born in January! She is on the verge of walking now…
2. Daughter #1 started a new corporate job and bought a house. Mr. Smith has learned to be a good guard dog.
3. We did a lot of driveway sittin’.
4. I made it through another session of Vacation Bible School.
5. I trekked to Maryland three times, Glens Falls, NY, and Nashville and lived to tell the tale.
6. I rescued various items of great old “brown” furniture at auction and the boy helped me move it all home.
7. I wrote four articles for the Kirkwood Historical Review.
8. I completed my 5x5x5 Bible reading program, plus Pilgrim’s Progress, and two women’s Bible studies: the book of Daniel and Even Better than Eden.
9. My new church community continued to strengthen and enrich me. Weekly worship is a delight and a feast. “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’” (Matthew 4:4) And old friends stood by me and supported me in all my endeavors.
10. And DN got a job at the University of Illinois! Woohoo!
I am thankful for God’s grace and mercy. As Randy Alcorn says, “Yes, let’s serve Jesus faithfully and seek to preserve Christian liberties, but let’s not whine about things being so dark. Instead, let’s shine the light as faithful children of God. Let’s trust Jesus to return when He is good and ready to do so, whether that is today, or a hundred years from now, or a thousand. Let’s live as people who are indeed going to meet Jesus soon, either by His return or our deaths. And let’s be ready to meet Him, and by His grace, hear those incredible words: ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant; enter into your Master’s joy.’”
…that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world.
Philippians 2:15
Praise God from whom all blessings flow! Happy New Year!
I am picking up daughter #2 and DN (and the girls) at the airport this morning. I will see them for about 45 minutes and then they will pile into the OM’s SUV and head to Champaign-Urbana to go house hunting. It is a terrible time to be looking for a house and it will no doubt be raining/snowing…but I know it will work out. 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻 Pray for traveling mercies!
In the meantime here are a few good things to read/watch.
To us, in our need and wounds and darkness. To us, in our apathy and indulgence and pride.
But you did.
Here is Denny Burk’s annual roundup of the year’s best YouTube videos. I especially liked the dude who soundtracks his Mom’s life with his trombone and the Epic Trick Shots.
And who doesn’t love Sinclair Ferguson looking back on the year? “Count your many blessings/Name them one by one/And it will surprise you/What the Lord has done.”
Yes, even though we live in what Anne so accurately terms “a degenerate and fatuous age”, we are daily served up God’s mercy in generous quantities.
Christmas in our part of flyover country was warm and rainy, but we ignored that and had a good time. We spent Christmas Eve with the boy’s family and with daughter #1, going to church (twice!) …
…and then coming home to open presents and eat our traditional dollar roll sandwiches and toasted ravioli feast, with charcuterie board and assorted nibblies.
(The boy and his fam headed to sunny Florida the next day.)
Daughter #1 spent the night and we enjoyed our traditional leisurely Christmas morning coffee/stockings/mimosas/cinammon rolls/presents extravaganza.
Mr. Smith made out like a bandit.
(That red ball in the corner kept him occupied for literally hours.)
We had a lovely pork tenderloin for dinner and then watched A Christmas Story (1985) which I had not seen for years.
We missed daughter #2 and her family, but we look forward to the years ahead when they too are residents of flyover country!
Pete the Cat, a ukulele and a new plush bathrobe like Mommy’s–what more could a girl ask for?
Maybe one of these:
Something to keep in mind for a new year!
“He that hath slight thoughts of sin never had great thoughts of God.”
It is the end of the year, so it is the time when TCM remembers all those movie people who died in the past year:
It’s not, I think, one of their better videos, but it does the job. There were no real surprises except I did not know that Frederic Forrest had died. You remember him as Blue Duck in Lonesome Dove, don’t you? He scared us silly in that one. He also was Captain Jenko in the original 21 Jump Street (1987) tv series, which I have been watching recently. He had quite a range. There was also David McCallum, my DP’s first crush in elementary school. And we’ll all miss Tina Turner and Jim Brown and Gina Lollobrigida.
All these people knew their glory days, but like everyone else,
“Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, And the spirit will return to God who gave it.”
–Ecclesiastes 12:7
Denny Burk discusses this here. “Our lives go by us in a flash. Our time is so short. And yet, still our hearts long for a fading glory—a glory that will be forgotten and unknown infinitely longer than it was known or acknowledged by anyone.”
Well, on that note, I wish all our readers a Merry Christmas!
And here’s a blast from the past which I found on ye olde internet, much to my delight:
There were even bigger trucks and excavators by our house yesterday.
They are making good progress and hopefully will be movin’ on down the road by Christmas.
Today we toast Charles Ellsworth Grapewin (December 20, 1869 – February 2, 1956)–American supporting actor, best known for portraying Uncle Henry in The Wizard of Oz (1939). Charley also played Grandpa Joad in The Grapes of Wrath (1940), Jeeter Lester in Tobacco Road (1941) and my personal favorite, Gramp Maple in The Petrified Forest (1936) with Leslie Howard.
Born in Xenia, Ohio, he ran away from home to be a circus acrobat which led to work as an aerialist and trapeze artist in a traveling circus before turning to acting. He traveled all over the world with the P.T. Barnum circus. Grapewin also appeared in the original 1903 Broadway production of The Wizard of Oz, 36 years before he was featured in the famous MGM film version. From the stage he moved to silent movies at the turn of the 20th century.
He was great–always recognizable, but true to his character.
The Bible, as you know, is full of angels. They are God’s servants. They are not pretty androgynous beings with blond hair, but mighty warriors who will protect you when needed. Here is a helpful primer about angels and how Christians should view them.
I am winding up my Bible-reading plan for 2023 with the book of Revelation. Wonderful. I was just reading about the grapes of wrath. Again I say, make the Bible part of your daily routine. John Piper agrees.
And here’s a shot of Bob Dylan for your Wednesday:
You can laugh at salvation, you can play Olympic games You think that when you rest at last you’ll go back from where you came But you’ve picked up quite a story and you’ve changed since the womb What happened to the real you, you’ve been captured but by whom?
He’s the property of Jesus Resent him to the bone You got something better You’ve got a heart of stone
