Turning the Page - Part 1

Hello friends, Dick Fothier with Stories from the Road and is that time of the year. Where we end something like the year and begin something like a new one. I love what CS Lewis says, but the possible exception of the equator, everything begins somewhere. So, 2022 ends and 2023 begins in just a few hours. How we talk about finishing something and starting something else is interesting to me. I mean, we can say, well, that's that or onto something else. Boy, glad that's over. So, what's next? Just trying to imagine, I wonder if another day, another dollar, or we might call them transitions or a new chances. Let me come at this another way. Here's what I believe. People are stories, walking books. You've heard me say that. I've talked about it a lot. I'll always talk about it that way. But if someone had never seen a book, how do you describe it? And not all books are stories, but all books inform us. So if someone had never seen a book, how do you describe it? Well, books have physical structure. They have bindings and glue and stitching and varying weights of paper and ink and printing and fonts. A storybook has a theme, threads, characters, plots and tree, joy, pain, all those things. Books have divisions. We call them sections, chapters, pages, paragraphs, topic sentences. They got a lot of words, verbs, nouns, pronouns, conjunctions. You say, what's a conjunction? Well, conjunctions are words like four and and nor or but or or. Or yet or so. There's a little acronym where you can remember. I mean, who wants to remember conjunctions, but fanboys spells those things, I just said. Or prepositions, those are parts of speech into over upon, in place of instead or punctuation. You got commas and periods and colons and semicolons and quotation marks and exclamation point. And of course, question marks. I love books. I love the smell of mustard and leather. I love libraries. But on our next podcast, we'll come back to that. For this podcast, let's call 2020 to AD. I know Dominic, that means the year of our Lord, a chapter in our lives. Let's just look back at it. I said, it's not healthy to live in the past. But I think it's really healthy to look at the past. One of my favorite Western writers, maybe my favorite Western writers is a fellow named Louis Lamore. He wrote scores of books, sold tens of millions of books. I like them because the good guy always wins. And I've had enough losses to really like wins. But he says something like this. He says, always check your back trail. First of all, to see if you're followed. But the second thing is to identify landmarks. Because landmarks, physical landmarks on a trail look different from the other direction. So that's my approach. So here's the deal. At sea level, the curvature of the earth limits the range of vision to 2.9 miles. So if I'm standing at sea level, I can see on a clear day, 2.9 miles. The formula for determining how many miles an individual can see at higher levels is the square root of the altitude times 1.225. And I knew you'd want to know that. But essentially what that says is that on a clear day, at 1,000 feet above sea level, a person with normal vision can see 39 miles, at 10,000 feet, at 10,000 feet, 123 miles, and at 25,000 feet, like in a plane, 194 miles. So here's my thesis. The older you are, the more you get to see. Life I would submit is not a winding down. It's a climbing up. So as you age, the higher in elevation you get to be able to look down your back trail and see sort of the world or situations or people more clearly. It's called perspective. There's a song that you'll be hearing no doubt in a few hours on Saturday night, New Year's Eve 2022, and it takes a look back. In 1788, Robbie Burns, as these call him, Robert Burns sent the poem, The Old Langzine, to the Scotts Musical Museum, indicating that it was an ancient song, but that he'd been the first to record it on paper. The phrase, Old Langzine, roughly translates as, for old time's sake, and the song is all about preserving old friendships and looking back over the events of the year. Song all over the world, evoking a sense of belonging and fellowship and nostalgia. Yeah, should all acquaintance be forgot, never brought to mind, should all acquaintance be forgot, and all the Langzine. The rough translation is, should all acquaintance be forgot, never brought to mind, should all acquaintance be forgot, and long, long ago. And it goes on to say, and for long, long ago, my dear, for long, long ago, will take a cup of kindness yet, for long, long ago. And surely you'll buy your pint jog, and surely I'll buy mine, and will take a cup of kindness yet, for long, long ago. It goes on to say, we too have run about the hills, and pulled the days he's fine. We've wandered many's the weary foot, since long, long ago. We too have paddled in the stream for morning's until dying, but seas between us broad have roared, since long, long ago. It's been a much-loved Scottish tradition to sing the song just before midnight. Everyone stands in a circle holding hands, then at the beginning of the final verse, or there's a hand, my trusty friend. They cross their arms across their bodies, so their left hand is holding the hand of the person on their right, and their right hand holds that of the person on their left. And when the song ends, everyone rushes to the middle, still holding hands. And there's a hand, my trusty friend, and give us a hand of yours, and will take a deep draft of goodwill for long, long ago. Remembering is a good thing, over 250 times in the Bible, the word remember is used, whether it's in the Old Testament Hebrew or the New Testament Greek, you say, well, what are you remembering when you look back down your back trip? Well, mostly I think we remember people and events, both good and bad things, shape our past, but nevertheless, this covers both events and people, a moment in time, a marker when you're looking down your back trail of an event and a person. This is how the writer of Deuteronomy, Moses, says it in chapter 5, when he was talking about Moses leading the people out of Egypt, and he says, remember that you were once slaves in Egypt, but the Lord, your God, brought you out with his strong hand and powerful arm. So when you look back, I mean, they had been in a terrible circumstance, and the Israelites were brought out, and the challenges to remember, not only that it happened, but who helped it happen. Think just now, whether you're in your car, on your bike, on the treadmill, perhaps, we've had quite the 2022, the hard things. I mean, you can't think of 2022 without synonymously thinking of the country of Ukraine or the storms that have been devastating things recently, or for some, the bear market on Wall Street. But in 2022, the year of our Lord, how about as we look down the back trail, saying, thank you, Lord, for that person and that one. Thank you for that moment. I have one, it's a person, his name is John Roy Blakely, and he's my brother-in-law, Ruth's older brother, by about 18 months or a couple of years. He went home to Jesus about noon, a few days ago, December the 21st. It's, by all rights, the darkest day of the year, but for John after a long, long debilitating illness, is the brightest day of the year for him, not for us who are left, but for him. John was an action guy. He was a take-charge guy. He was always on the move. I mean, and his, sort of his landmark template, if I can say it that way, was generosity. He was always generous. He would surprise you with his generosity. This is a guy who would get up at five in the morning to wash his car. So he was like the ever-ready bunny, right? And years ago, when I was just president of a small college in California, I got in our car one the day, one day, and I said to Ruth Ruth, who got these floor mats? Did you get new floor mats for the car? She said, no, I thought you got them. I said, I didn't get them. I said, I bet John got them. Well, John lived 90 miles away from where we were, but I called them on the phone. I said, likely. Did you get new floor mats for my car? He laughed and said, yes. I said, well, when did you do that? And he said, two months ago. So I'm grateful. I'm just not very observant, apparently. But what a man, John Roy Blakely, was he died at the age of 81 plus some. What an inspiration. What a friend. And so when we sing that song, when we hear that song in a few hours, I'm going to be thinking of, and there's a hand to my trusty friend, and give us a hand of yours, and we'll take a deep draft of goodwill for long, long ago. And John, you're going to turn around a couple of times in a few of us who, a bit long in the truth, a bit older, are going to show up. And title this at the top of my podcast in my head, but I didn't say it, a turning of the page. And when I referenced what a book is like, there's always that thought of what's coming next, the turning of the page. It sounds something like this. And so when we see it the next time, we will have turned the page, and we'll talk a bit more about walking books in 2023. God bless. Have a spectacular new years, and we look forward to and we see you, think of you, imagine you again. This is Dick Foss. God bless. You're listening to this podcast, so I know you've got a curious mind. Here's a helpful fact you might not know yet. 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