Thursday’s Thirst

How about those Lions?!  What a great and exciting victory over Matthew Stafford (I’m still a fan) and the LA Rams.  And now they are six-point favorites to win again … and if the Packers can pull another upset … Oh, the possibilities.  I hear that standing room only tickets for this Sunday’s game are commanding well over $400 – can you imagine what they will be if Green Bay is in town to determine who goes to the Super Bowl?  Life is good.

Is it Thursday already!?  As I sit down at the keyboard this noon, I am thinking it is Wednesday and that I am ahead of schedule.  Then I looked at the calendar and realized today is Thursday – which I should have known because of the two places I already have been today!  Well, I hope “better late than never” is OK by you … because, now that I think about it, last week was a “never”.  2024 is not off to the best of starts in regard to Thursday’s Thirst.

I officiated a wedding this past Saturday.  The couple chose their wedding date to be12.23.23, and not the 12.31.23 that a record setting number of other couples have chosen as this year ends.  Many times over the weekend I thought of them having their first Christmas together as Mr. and Mrs. in their new apartment.  I pray they have at least as many as Monica and I have now had as Mr. and Mrs.  I believe this is our 48th … which were preceded by 7 other Christmases together leading up to our marriage.

This Story for Christmas comes compliments of my cousin, Tim Hetzner, the (semi-retired) Ambassador for Spiritual Growth for Lutheran Church Charities of Chicago.  This was from his daily email devotion of yesterday.  As you read it, the suggestion is that you consider these words given to us by St. Paul: “Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!” (2 Corinthians 9.15).  Here is the story:

With Christmas less than two weeks away … and the number of “advent” calendars that actually talk about Advent decreasing … I suggest we do a little something together this week that is actually geared toward preparing our hearts for the coming (advent) celebration of the incarnation of our God and Savior Jesus.  God has promised to be at work in us through his Word, and I have found he frequently supports that work through music.  So, this week, I simply offer to you a little scripture enhanced by the words of a song.

I like the second definition of “impact” found in the Oxford dictionary (online):  “have a strong effect on someone or something.”  Merriam-Webster says it this way: “to impinge or make contact especially forcefully.”  This one I do not like as much because impinge generally implies a negative effect, and I am thinking of impact in a positive way.  For the same reason neither pushy nor forceful work either.  Yet somehow I am sensing that the Spirit of our God was active in this way in my life on a pretty constant basis over this past week.

So, what comes to your mind when you hear the initials P.T.?  Is it possibly Post Thanksgiving living?  Perhaps you are a grammarian, and your mind goes to Past Tense.  If you are a Leonard Cohen aficionado, “Passing Through” may be stuck in your head.  Some in the employment world are thinking Part Time.  And those connected in any way to the healthcare industry are most likely focused upon Physical Therapy (not to be confused with O.T. or counseling).

I am thankful for dalmatians, dominoes, and dixie cups.  I am thankful for downtowns, driveways, and dentists.  I am thankful for Decembers, decimals, and decorations.  And one might say that this covers my 3-D Thanks – squared.  But my mind is going in a definitely different direction (oh, those 3-D’s!).  I am thankful for the unknown caller from “BC” who buzzed me while writing this … particularly because she left a message to explain the purpose of her call (I might even call her back).  However, as I said – or at least tried to imply – my focus this morning is broader than any of these short lists … my 3-D Thanks has me thanking my God and Savior for my past … my present … and my future.

Presently I am reading one of the strangest books I have ever read – “The Midnight Library” (Matt Haig).  As the book suggests, “Between life and death there is a library.  And within that library, the shelves go on forever.  Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived.  To see how things would be if you had made other choices … Would you have done anything different, if you had a chance to undo your regrets?”`

All the evil that surrounds us in our world, as I believe I mentioned a few weeks ago, has prompted me to re-read Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s “The Cost of Discipleship.”  Bonhoeffer was martyred by the Gestapo near the end of World War II (April 9, 1945 in Flossenburg concentration camp)  As Samuel H. Miller, Dean of Harvard Divinity School states on the back cover, “The whole book is a powerful attack on ‘easy Christianity’ and a warning that in a world such as Bonhoeffer could see coming, faith was not easily attained … Bonhoeffer is a teacher and thinker whose truths were tested in a time of trouble and whose life and death certified to the strength and depth of his desire to follow Christ.”