Daily Dose 63: Year End Review

The most wonderful time of the year includes the most wonderful night to stay home. New Year’s Eve. For our early married years, we were left alone on New Year’s Eve. Our church never had a service, so we weren’t torn about missing it. We could sit around and review passages we had memorized through the year and spend a long time praying for our families, our friends, plans we had. We could talk about what we wanted to do in the coming year around the house. We could decide what we needed to save money for. We could look over the calendar and see what was coming: when we could schedule our anniversary trip, when Christmas fell the following year, when David might be gone.

A Real Alternative Lifestyle

If we wanted to eat out, we could go to Angelo’s early for a mushroom and black olive pizza (long before “vegetarian” pizza was in, thank you). If we wanted to have fun, we could do a puzzle, or read a book together, or play Scrabble. If we were still up at midnight making plans and reviewing the year, that was fine. If we were done with all we wanted to discuss, and were tired we could go to bed. Novel. Facing reality rather than drinking it into the sewer. Sitting before the Still Voice rather than gyrating to a blaring one.

I am not the least bit sorry if this sounds utterly BOR-ING, unsophisticated, sober, cozy, nerdish, quaint, provincial, or homey for the night billed as blow-out extravaganza by “everyone whose anyone.” We enjoyed waking up to a new calendar with clear heads, clean hearts, fresh spiritual purposes, and a general plan for the year. I enjoyed waking up having had the Lord and my husband to myself the night before and having received guidance from them both for our home for the new year.

Now I understand why a church might want to have a service on New Year’s Eve. They might choose to have one because the body is close knit and family, and everyone wants to be together. They might choose to have one because people have such pathetic, disgusting, unpalatable, and repulsive controlling and destructive habits that they need a social alternative to ease them away. If they were left to cold turkey a self-planned spiritual new year celebration, they’d just succumb to the old and start the new year with regret rather than rejoicing.

Don’t misunderstand. We have been to many New Year’s Eve services. We have been New Year’s Eve services and retreats. We’ll attend such services in the future. But I always feel that even the best of services has been an event substitute for direct substance with the Savior. Personal substance, family substance. Uncomfortable substance when dealing with bad habits and shortcomings. Always profitable substance since leaders are challenged to tackle (a football word for a foot-bowl day) their role as leaders, rather than substitute someone else’s leading for their own.  Radical, I know. Cheap. Conserves fuel. If Evaluations could have their own holiday, this would be it.

Whatever you decide to do come Monday night–this year I get to stay home. And whatever else we do, I’ll spend some time praying everyone could be at home as well, having fun facing reality with their spiritual leaders.