Hello 2017

Happy New Year!

I think I might have been awake (or half asleep) when the ball dropped in NYC's Time Square. In any case, I was in bed, with the light out trying trying to sleep. I do recall noticing the lack of noise outside as the clock slipped into the new year. The reporters on the radio were talking about Times Square so I knew the new year was here.

I went to church this morning since it was Sunday. We met at the town Senior Center since our usual university location was closed for the holidays. Service started at 9:30 am. Many of the regulars were missing due to holiday visiting travel but there was still a good turn out.

Our new pastor's sermon was appropriate and inspiring for the start of a new year: "The Sharp-Dressed Christian" based on Colossians 3:12-14:

"Put on... compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony."

A take on the old adage, "clothes make the man" (person). Good advice (encouragement) for anyone including skeptics like me.

Later, during a sunny afternoon, I went for a two-hour walk. The sun was very bright and the air was crisp since the temperature was near 40F but seemed lower due to a brisk breeze from the north (which stretched out any flags flying). The sunlight was so perfect that I had to stop and try to capture the beauty with my cell phone camera (haha-I'm such an ignorant optimist).

An ornamental tree.

The weather was very similar to that of New Year's Day 2015. The sunlight on the bare tree branches fascinates me. The starkness of the branches reaching into the deep blue sky amazes me for some reason. Perhaps it's the contrast between the bare limbs and the vividly alive blue sky, both tree and sky representing different facets of seemingly endless time.

Tree-mendous.

The long walk allowed me to explore some streets that I rarely encounter. I enjoy admiring the different architecture of the houses (both large and small) as well as the care that some homeowners have dedicated to their abode.

During my walk, I was listening to  Dr. W. Robert Godrey's "Survey of Church History" by Ligonier Ministries. I listened to several about the Puritans in England during the 17th Century including the English Civil War (starring Oliver Cromwell). Some very interesting stuff (politics and religion). Makes one better appreciate the actual concept of the separation of church and state.

All-in-all, a nice day for a walk.

Trout Brook Creek (with ducks) - looking north.

I ended the day with a nice lengthy phone chat with my nephew Nick.

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Links:

http://www.biblestudytools.com/esv/colossians/passage/?q=colossians+3:12-14#

http://ricketwrite.blogspot.com/2015/01/another-holiday-hike.html

http://www.ligonier.org/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Civil_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Cromwell
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Written Monday 2 January 2017