Published: January 18, 2008 12:39 pm            

The Back Porch: A new year filled with new plans and new unknowns

Originally published in the January 11, 2008, print edition.

“The best laid schemes o’mice and men gang aft a-gley.” — Robert Burns

“There is always something to upset the most careful of human calculations.” — Ihara Saikaku

Careful plans were made for the week between Christmas and the New Year. On Thursday and Friday, my parents, their children and their grandchildren planned on staying at a motel complete with pools and water slides. The night before the third-annual event, the flu bug attacked taking down five children from three families. As we canceled plans and rescheduled them, then canceled and reworked them again, the consensus (although not unanimous since some were not present due to illness) is that we’d always remember the Christmas of ’07.

Brother Scott, sister Lori and I mused about a Christmas 30 years prior that was also infamously memorable. It was the Christmas Eve that Dad and Mom gifted Lori and I blow-up Raggedy Ann doll chairs and Scott a blow-up snowmobile. We smiled for our photos and loved our new gifts. Reluctantly we went to bed, leaving our treasured presents under the family room bay window with our parents’ promise that we could play with them again the next day.

On Christmas morning Lori and I ran downstairs planning to play in our new chairs. What we saw brought tears and tantrums. Both of the Raggedy Ann doll chairs were deflated. The snowmobile was standing tall between the yellow pancakes.

Clearly remembering that long ago Christmas we reminded Scott, “We never even got to play with them!”

“I never got to play with the snowmobile either,” Scott said. “It disappeared as soon as the folks learned that I punctured the chairs!”

Stepping into a new year, we know from experiences as far back as childhood that there will be plans that go as planned, and others that will deflate and fall flat according to our perspective. Although there are wonderful happenings scheduled on our ’08 calendar — like Stephanie’s high school graduation and Elizabeth and Mark’s wedding — there are other events that we simply can’t guess at or predict.

When you stepped into 2001, did you predict that terrorists would strike America on 9/11? Entering 2005, did you foresee that Hurricane Katrina would roar ashore? South Asians didn’t plan for their devastating tsunami either. Villages vanished and lives were destroyed. “Everything is broken, everyone is crying!” was the anguished testimony of one Sri Lankan.

There’s so much that could strike fear in our souls as we enter 2008 — Prices could crash; nations could fall; fortunes could be lost; weather patterns could rebel beyond reason; loved ones may die; accidents may occur.

As we plan crop rotations, family getaways, milestone events and other special moments, we must not be paralyzed in fear. You and I can and should dream big dreams for the New Year even as we recognize that no one is exempt or immune to trouble and suffering.

In the 2003 movie “Master and Commander,” Captain Jack Aubrey (played by Russell Crowe) straps himself to the mast of his ship during a brutal storm to avoid being thrown overboard to the enormous waves. The waves tossed and pitched the ship from one direction to the next, yet the Captain remained safe, secured to the mast.

It’s my sincere hope that 2008 will contain smooth sailing for you and yours, yet we both know that within our personal world of family and work, and the suffering world of those in the storms of poverty, abuse, oppression, and hunger, the winds will blow — sometimes gently, sometimes violently, sometimes impacting one, sometimes affecting the masses.

Getting safely through the storm will depend on you and me tethering or strapping ourselves to a “mast” of faith. My “mast” is this solid rock truth: God is good. That may not always be how I feel, but it is forever what I know and believe.

Robert Browning writes, “God’s in his heaven — All’s right with the world.” If you agree, you can enter 2008 with much childlike anticipation, lots of great plans and authentic joy. Come smooth sailing or storms: God is in his heaven — All’s right and all’s good!

Happy 2008!

        

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