Possible Slogans for 2010

I don't know if this is something everyone does or not, but in my family we sometimes come up with slogans for the new year. You know, catchy phrases like "Buy a new crate in 2008," or "Things will decline in 2009." Those were not our official slogans from the past two years; in fact, if we had official slogans, I can't remember them. But whatever clever jingles we did come up with, official or not, are in the final stages of obsolescence. It's time for some new ones. I have lots and lots of excellent suggestions.

Pronunciation note: For some of these slogans you have to say "twenty-ten" and for others "two thousand ten." You can figure out which works better as you go.

#1. Meet lots of men in 2010. Sorry, ladies, no offense intended. It's not that I don't like meeting you just as much those of my own gender; but, to be quite frank, "ladies" does not rhyme with "ten." Nor does "girls." Nor do "misses," "madames," or "those of the female persuasion." "Women" does come pretty close, but the meter is all wrong. So men it is.

#2. Listen to Glenn in 2010. This is not really one of my goals. Glenn Beck is a pretty good host, but I haven't listened to him much and I have no overwhelming desire to do so. If listening to talk radio is on your 30 by 30 list, however, this is the year. Do it.

#3. Eat a hen in 2010. This is for those non-vegetarians who want really easy New Year's resolutions. If you really want a resolution that would be hard to keep, you could change the "a" to a "no," but I don't know why you'd want to.

#4. Eat like a Karen in 2010. A number of the students at Bible school this year are students from the Karen (pronounced kə-REN) ethnic group in Burma. Perhaps the most remarkable characteristic these people exhibit is a strength of taste buds that is positively astounding. Nothing is safe from the cayenne pepper shaker when they are around. Want to develop superpower tastebuds yourself? Want to be able to eat anything? The only way to get there is practice. Eat like a Karen.

Quick recipe for those who decide to follow #4:
Make oatmeal - lots of it. Pour it in a bowl. Cover it with black pepper, salt, and cayenne pepper until the oatmeal disappears. Mix it all up. Add more spices to taste. Enjoy!

#5. Stay friends with Ben in 2010. This one is going to be really hard for me. Ben and I have only been friends for twenty years, after all, and, though I can hardly imagine a closer, better friendship, who knows what could happen in the next twelve months? Don't worry, Ben, I'll stick to you like glue.

#6. Take up your pen in 2010. This one is actually serious. I want to write more. Writing improves with practice, as a quick glance back in my blog archives will prove, and I want my writing to keep improving. College will help with that, I'm sure, but I want to get better on my own, too.

#7. Never again in 2010. Do you regret anything from your past? Did you make any mistakes in 2009? This slogan is for you. It's very versatile. You can use it however you wish. As a matter of fact, "again" is itself pretty much a wild card in 2010 slogans. "Wash the car..." "Make dinner..." "Read the Bible..." "Stop smoking..." Pretty much anything goes! Take it. Use it. No charge.

#8. Pray for peace in 2010. Okay, this one requires a little creativity. Running out of English rhymes? Pronounce the year in French! Deux mille dix rhymes with peace, and a whole slew of other words that would otherwise never make any New Year's slogans ever.

#9. Care for your chien in 2010. Another French trick. Chien means dog.

#10. Remember that God can in 2010. This is the best I could come up with for a real, pithy, worthwhile slogan. Nothing is impossible with God, and I want to live like I believe it. When big difficulties present themselves, such as paying $30,000 for college, or having lots of convention responsibilities, or even the constant difficulty of budgeting my time and arranging my priorities when I have a million things to do, that is when the recognition of God's omnipotence is absolutely essential. I need to remember that God can provide, that God can guide, and that God can inspire.

So there you go. All sorts of good resolutions for the new year, compacted into clever little rhymes. I hope they have motivated you to make this year a successful and glorious one. Happy New Year!

When We All Get to Heaven....

...what a day of rejoicing that will be!"

That song goes on to speak about seeing Jesus -- the biggest, most important, and most wonderful reason that heaven will be a place of rejoicing. But there's another reason that has become increasingly real to me recently, and that is the hope of meeting and getting to know countless others in a way that is simply impossible in this life.

Last month, I went on a college tour that included visiting six different colleges in five different states and driving, along with my traveling companions Mr. H. and Ben, through a total of thirteen states. It was a very helpful trip that radically changed my opinions about a number of colleges and left me feeling very much more informed than I had been when I left. I enjoyed the enlightenment; I enjoyed the scenery; I enjoyed the amazingly delicious cafeteria food. But mostly I enjoyed the people.

I made a lot of new acquaintances on this trip: professors, admissions counselors, students, and occasionally other prospective students. In all probability, most of these will never be anything more than acquaintances, or even former acquaintances. In some cases I have absolutely no problem with this scenario. In some cases I welcome it. But I met quite a few people whose friendship I would love to have, and the majority of these people will be swept into the back of my memory along with everyone else.

I consider this to be a very sad thought. You see, I wish I could know everyone in the world who was worth knowing: everyone who could teach me something new, or who could learn something new with me; everyone with whom I could enjoy a good laugh, or a good story, or a good conversation. I wish I could know everyone who shares my interests, my passions, and my philosophy.

I wish I could know that professor at Hillsdale College whose passion, eloquence, and enthusiasm all combined to make him the perfect teacher. I would love to get to know those two students from Wheaton (one of whom was the oldest of five in a home-schooled family) with whom Ben and I discussed the origin of truth on the train into Chicago. I would really like to be friends with the admissions counselor at Bryan College, who emphasized that whatever college God leads me to will be the right one, and the visit coordinator at the same school, who gave her own testimony of how nothing is impossible with God. The list goes on. Those students at Patrick Henry, that professor at Geneva, that Admissions Counselor at Hillsdale -- I wish I could know them all.

The problem, of course, is that I can't.

I think one of the saddest things in life is the impossibility of knowing everyone who would be worth knowing. So many potential friendships must be sacrificed to mere earthly practicality. The friendships we do get to enjoy are wonderful, and I have no complaints about my own. But just as every friend is unique and irreplaceable, so no friendship is a perfect replacement for another, even if the seeds of the other friendship never turn into actual plants.

I have a theory: since everyone who accepts Jesus' sacrifice for his atonement will go to heaven, and since we will live there eternally, once we get there we will have all the time we want to get to know each other. No potential friendship will have to be set aside. Never again will we have to wonder what a relationship could have been. Not only will we be able to enjoy God completely, unimpeded by our fallen nature, but we will also be able to enjoy each other completely as well.

What a day of rejoicing that will be!

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Dragonfly on a Red Cardboard Box

I took this picture with a new lens I just bought, a Tamron 70-300mm lens with a macro function.  This photo is a composite of two different photos from the same perspective, using the better-focused part of each to make an in-focus whole.

My Wishlist Wishlist

As I was doing some shopping on Amazon.com today, carefully comparing some similar items and combing their reviews for useful information, I remembered a time when I used to do such things more frequently, albeit for a rather amusing purpose.

Way back in the early days of my relationship with the World Wide Web, when we paid $25 a month to get super-slow service from America Online, when e-mail was something of a novelty, and when things like Blogger and Facebook were only mystical concepts in the minds of the technological avantgarde - back then, in the dawn of my online experience, Amazon.com was my primary attraction to the internet. Strange though it may seem now, I spent hours on that site. In fact, I probably spent a rather large majority of my internet allowance perusing the world's biggest online store. And the irony is that I had no intention of buying anything. I was the ultimate Windows shopper.

My commitment to honesty compels me to admit that the simple joy of comparing the latest merchandise was not my only attraction to Amazon.com, per se. It wasn't all merely about finding out what was the best, the cheapest, or the best deal. Nor was it about just having fun, though of that I had much. No, I was a selfish little lad, as a retrospective glance at my ideas, misconceptions, and consequent action from that time would make sadly apparent.

I first learned about Amazon.com when Evan and Jill came over for dinner shortly after they had moved to New Hampshire. It's one of those random little memories that sticks in one's mind from his childhood for no explicable reason. Mama and Jill were talking about shopping, I think, and Jill asked if we had tried Amazon.com. I had heard of it - I think by that time it was already a pretty big company - but hadn't realized that WE could use it. I don't know exactly who I thought generally used it - probably rich people with fancy computers or college students who could sit down with only Notepad open and design a whole website (imagine!) - but that's beside the point. The point is that if Jill could shop at Amazon.com, so could I. Suddenly online shopping was a possibility, and I took my first opportunity to check it out.

Some time in the next few days, I opened my very own Amazon.com account. What excitement! And what bliss! I had already become the first member of my family to open a personal e-mail account, and to add "first Amazon.com member" to my resume cemented my reputation as the most tech-savvy member of the family.

But this was back in the days when pride had less appeal for me than materialism. Imagine my absolute delight when I learned three separate but related facts: Amazon sometimes overstocked and sold things for cheaper; Amazon asked what your birthday was; and Amazon let you create a wishlist. Clearly, Amazon users had only to report their DOB and ask for whatever they wanted, and the philanthropic managers of the good website would send you presents (if, of course, they happened to have more stuff than they really needed).

Well, from that moment it was my ambition to place all the overstocked merchandise I could find in my wishlist. I particularly desired a CD boombox and a digital camera, I remember, and I would fly around the electronics pages searching for whatever I thought was nice but unlikely to be extremely popular.

"This one looks nice. Memorex CD and tape player... with remote control! I doubt it will be overstocked, but I'll add it to my list just in case. Oh, here's a nice Sony... same features but way more money! No one will buy this! I'll add it..."

Birthday after birthday came and went, and though I watched the mail around those times with eager expectancy, my hopes for a complimentary gift from the wonderland behind my mother's inch-thick laptop screen were never realized. Nearly ten years later, I'm still waiting.