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A Year Behind, Another Ahead

Since 2015, the week between Christmas and New Year’s is when I get organized, set goals for the next year, and conduct a retrospective on the year coming to an end. Most years, if not each of these past eight, I’ve been glad to close the books on the year that was and turn my attention to the year ahead. I typically focus more energy dreaming about what’s next than I do mulling over the past or even living in the present.

I tend to live in the future. On my good days, I’m optimistic and positive and driven. But on my bad days, I’m anxious. Living in the future tends toward worry. On my best days, I reign myself in and come back to the present, stick to my commitments, accept my limits, am grateful for what I’ve received, and do what is mine to do now.

Today, I’ve been looking back. 2022 has not been a solid gold year. It wasn’t dross, either. I started the year with COVID. I came through okay, but it took a while for my lungs to recover. Throughout the spring I experienced major exhaustion, I was sleep deprived, and spent most of the term in survival mode. Certain aspects of my work life continued to be affected by the pandemic. The United Methodist Church splintered, which had reprecussions for us. We helped our kids deal with normal kid stuff. Our biggest challenge was helping David adjust to a new classroom environment with different peers. He missed a couple of friends from last year big time.

There were good things. Joy moved from recreational soccer to the club level, joining BVB. She’s developed as a goalkeeper and taken big steps this fall. She also tried out for her middle school basketball team and made the roster. David played fall baseball and excelled. He had fantastic fall and spring soccer seasons. The Thunder went 21-1 on the year, and David scored 42 goals across both campaigns. We won the local tournament in the fall and advanced to the Tournament of Champions in Dallas (we went 2-1 and did not advance past pool play). Both kids did well in school and continue to exhibit leadership among their peers.

I enjoyed my work in the classrom and continued to build relationships with students, fellow staff, and members of the faculty at Truett. When the fall term arrived I thought people were happier. I taught Sunday school and had a blast. I was invited to preach a couple of times at First Baptist Church Valley Mills and preached once at First Methodist Killeen, too, at the minister’s invitation. Molly preached and ministered and did a lot of great work in the pastorate. We went on a family camping trip to the Dutton Ranch on spring break, and late in the spring we visited Great Wolf Lodge in Grapevine. I played in a men’s basketball league and played a lot of pickup at FBC Woodway. Molly and the kids went to Florida during the summer to join family on vacation. We traveled to the Ouachita National Forest in Arkansas for Thanksgiving (we did not see any “wood apes”). We had a nice visit in Tyler for Christmas.

I continue to love where I live. It was another good year living in Central Texas. My friend Kevin asked me, “If you could live anywhere, not in Texas, where would it be?”

He added that the qualifier was necessary, knowing me as he does.

I said, “You’re right. I was going to say McGregor.”

Woodway continues to be a great community. I walk our neighborhood frequently, the greater Waco area has plenty of fun things to do, and our house is where I’m most at peace. I like this place.

With all those good things, we’re still facing the challenges to Molly’s health. Coming into the next year, our top priority is to do what we can to help her return to full health. If you’re a person of prayer, please ask God to grant our family healing, provision, patience, and peace.

I’m thankful for it all.

Life isn’t without suffering, challenges, and hardships. We long for that world. But that’s not the one we’re in at the moment. Do I desire to press forward, reach new heights, and accomplish great things in the year ahead? I do. I’ll set my goals and work toward them. Our family will dream together and chase together. Will the road be smooth? Of course not. It never is.

But our tests and trials are the crucible within which God forms our character, strengthens our faith, and shows us more fully what it means to live a life marked by faith, hope, and love. There is good work to do and people to love. I have movies to watch and books to read (the 2022 list is here). I have friends, and the prospect of making more. Opportunities are abundant.

There will challenges ahead, too. I’ll have to learn to be grateful for those. I might not be grateful when they arrive. Knowing me, I’ll grumble. But with the passage of time, maybe this knucklehead will learn afresh that in God’s economy nothing is wasted.

A year behind, another ahead. Each one, a gift.

Book Notes

I’m still reading the same books I said were “in progress” last issue: Ron Chernow’s Washington, David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, and Wendell Berry’s This Day: Collected & New Sabbath Poems.

But I started reading Quentin Tarantino’s Cinema Speculation today and I won’t be putting that one down until I’m done.

Sights and Sounds

I’ve closed the year with a few more movie viewings: Nowitzki: The Perfect Shot (2014), Clerks III (2022), The Proposal (2009), Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022), Tower Heist (2011), and Bullet Train (2022).

I most enjoyed the Nowitzki documentary. I’m embarrassed I had not seen it. I didn’t follow the NBA Draft closely in 1998. But I did follow the Mavs, and I watched a lot of the other teams on TNT’s Thursday Night Basketball late into the night during my teenage years. I knew then that the Mavericks were a bad team. My dad did not understand why I would ask to watch them. He’d indulge me with a quick flip to show me how much they were down and ask, “Seen enough?”

I was into basketball. I still am, though not in the same way. The ‘97-’98 Mavs squad featured Shawn Bradley, Cedric Ceballos, A. C. Green, Robert Pack, Michael Finley (in his second season), Hubert Davis, Samaki Walker, and other JAGs (just-a-guy). My dad liked to check in on Martin Müürsepp. That squad finished 20-62. They were terrible. I watched them anyway. It was professional basketball, and those dudes could play, maybe not as well as other pros, but way better than me. It was undeniable they needed a lot of help.

When the Mavs drafted Dirk Nowitzki, I learned of it from my friend Scott Beimler. We were on the front steps of the Family Life Center of Green Acres Baptist Church. Beim said, “Did you see who the Mavericks drafted? A seven-foot stiff from Germany with a bad hair cut. They showed him on the news report shooting mid-range jumpers.”

Turned out Dirk wasn’t a stiff and that he’d become my favorite basketball player of all time. His first year was rough. But he grew as a player, and I enjoyed watching every second of his career. I was crushed when the Mavs lost to the Heat in the 2006 Finals, and I was thrilled for the guy when the Mavs won the 2011 NBA Championship over the Heat.

We went to see Puss in Boots: The Last Wish while in Tyler for Christmas. David was asked what he thought, and he said, “It was okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah, it was worse than a ten but better than a five. Probably an eight or a nine.”

That’s more than okay.

Radiohead’s The National Anthem made an appearance on my recommended playlist and I fell into a memory of cruising with Colin Smith.

Last Words

On the blog: a meditation on one verse in Luke’s account of the birth of Jesus, my response to a question about ways I try to make my workplace better, a short essay on our search for a church home, a reaction to a James K. A. Smith quote about nostalgia, and my year in reading.

Before I go, standard copy.

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Be well this week. Bless others.

Best,

BAS

P.S. - Stepped out the front door of my childhood home in Tyler while on our Christmas visit, went down the street, turned left on a sidewalk that wasn’t there when I was a kid, and then walked through a park which, in former days, was a wood. Enjoyed every step.