by Kevin Burton
There is a count-your-blessings exercise I do now and then that usually brings me good cheer.
I sit in a chair and keep my head still, but using my straight-ahead and peripheral vision, take in everything I can see.
I then consider where it all came from and remembers the stories behind it. So and so crocheted this for me. Got that on such and such a vacation. Glory days of Wichita State basketball. Birthday presents.
In drinking in this snapshot (usually from the mancave) I can't help but count blessings.
But I had a different take on this exercise last week. I feasted my eyes as usual, but then wondered, apart from pictures of loved ones, is there anything at all here that isn't old, even way old? What is there that points toward the future or even speaks to something positive in my current life circumstances? Maybe a little, not too much.
It's like living in the Kev Museum, the kind of place one strolls through politely, smiling occasionally in remembrance and appreciation. But it's also the kind of place you leave, checking the time and beginning to think about dinner, or anything current and relevant.
You visit such a place, then you get back to real life, if you have a real life.
So, today is New Year's Day. Happy New Year to all!
I have written that turning from one year to the next doesn't mean anything and that I don't do New year's resolutions. I should have said the change doesn't necessarily mean anything. You certainly could gain momentum toward clarity, quitting bad habits and talking up good ones on a day that happens to be New Year's Day. The important thing is to get started whenever that may be. Preaching to myself here.
If I had a five-part plan on how to break free from this Kev Museum thing, I would unveil it here, I promise you.
The Covid 19 pandemic brought upheaval to everyone in the world. I don't believe upheaval is too strong a word. I hear people talking about Covid in the past tense all the time as if it were over. It's obviously not. Several people I know had it recently. Covid is still a thing.
Having said that, we can only go so long blaming inactivity on Covid. Viruses mutate to survive better in a changed environment. I need to do the same, make changes to my basic structure to navigate life better.
"The direction you choose to face determines whether you're standing at the end or the beginning of a road," writes author Richelle E. Goodrich.
I went looking for New Year's quotes and found this one the best, because it isn't limited to Jan. 1 and because it speaks to attitude. I hadn't heard of Goodrich, but she appears to be a serial positive thinker. Here's another of her quotes that speaks to personal choice of attitude: "You can add up your blessings or add up your troubles. Either way, you'll find you have an abundance."
I can't tell you what will happen to any of us in 2024, but in applying Goodrich's "the direction you choose to face" quote to my own life, that direction needs to be toward the cross of Jesus Christ.
In the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon takes us through a wearisome journey of "vanities" of all kinds. He concludes the story with this:
"Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments,
for this is man's all. For God will bring every work into judgment, Including every secret thing, whether good or evil (Ecc. 12:13-14 NKJV).
Once again, Happy New Year 2024! If you'll excuse me now, I'm off to tend to my museum and my attitude.
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