Welcome to 2008

January 2, 2008

life

Woo hoo. Happy New Year, and all that.

I spent much of 2007 flying by the seat of my pants, for various reasons. Both good and bad reasons. It was an interesting time. I look forward to a different year. Change is good. A large part of my view of a spiritual life is that God allows such a life to go through seasons, just like people north of Florida.

As an aside, I spent much of the latter part of December visiting Florida, where my wife’s family lives and where we went to college. The whole time, the temperature was in the 80s. Not fun.

I don’t believe these seasons necessarily correspond to any of our time periods. I do, however, believe that our mental and spiritual states can influence the times of these seasons, as well as the things we experience and learn during those seasons. And let’s face it, we as Western humans like to feel like there is something different about January 1 compared to December 31.

For myself, I’m not a fan of New Year’s Resolutions. But I do enjoy the feeling of a fresh start, and the ideas and perspectives that come from that feeling. In light of this, there are a number of things I look forward to about 2008. Many of them will cause new ideas and new perspectives.

• Finishing a certain freelance project.
• The opportunity to do certain other freelance projects that I really resonate with and believe in.

  There are several ministries and organizations with which I’ve discussed doing this kind of project. I really enjoy the opportunity to create these kind of sites, and learn about what these people do, and how to express it on a website.

• Finally designing this website and getting rid of the default WordPress theme.

  I know, I’ve been talking about that all year. Hopefully, it’s really going to happen in 2008, though. Maybe even early 2008. Don’t hold your breath, though.

• Learning more about Ruby on Rails.
• Learning other stuff to make me a better web person.
• Seeing more of how the things on my heart resonate, or don’t resonate, with the things on God’s heart.

  I have a lot of passion for various things. With some of them, I really understand how they relate to my vision and purpose for life. With others, I have no idea. I like to learn this kind of thing, though.

• Getting caught up on my reading.

  Normally, I read a lot more than I did in 2007. Theology, spirituality, ministry, escapist fantasy, design and programming, business, and so on. I have more books piled up waiting for me to read them in all of these categories than I normally do.

• Various travels and events.

  Especially Cornerstone. This is the 25th anniversary of the fest. It will be a wonderful event, I’m sure.

  Atlanta has a lot of really cool events this year, too. Great concerts, a big tattoo convention, more great concerts, and other things.

  Work and web related travels will include, at least, several trips to Chicago. They will probably also include a conference or two. As always, I’ll try to post these when I know the dates and locations in case there is an opportunity for sharing a beverage.

• Of course, there is the election.

  I find myself much more terrified than optimistic, but I still have to consider it something to look forward to. The last eight years in the United States have had an almost exclusively negative effect on how followers of Jesus are looked at by everyone else. Biblically, this is a bad thing.

  I believe that, one way or the other, the next four years will also have a significant impact. My fear is that we will be worse off than we are.

I’m sure there are other things that I’m forgetting to anticipate, and many other things that will completely surprise me when they come. And I’m okay with that.

In any case, welcome to the new year. May the face of God shine on you when you don’t expect it.