Welcome 2013, A Rebooted Greeting

It's been a long time. I can't promise a successful or consistent reboot, but for today, I am here. Happy New Year. I sit here with a heart that is happy with the promise a new year brings. A fresh start and clean slate is always a nice and welcoming thing, like a newly sharpened pencil and an empty drawing pad. So, I am resolute with myself to continue and build upon some good things and healthier and better choices. For today, I'm involved with a bit of praying and fasting, listening to some wonderful classical music and I feel like the windows of my soul are letting in a welcome breeze that is fresh with hope and contentment. I can't quite write that, though, without saying my heart goes out to those who are unable to muster such hope right now, and my prayers are with and for them. So, to anyone who is still lurking about, this is the place where I chronicle my spiritual and artistic journey as one, little and rather low-key person. I am not a spectacular writer or artist, or incredibly witty or erudite, but I am sincere, honest and opinionated. And I like to write and draw.

“Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true.”
-Alfred, Lord Tennyson

10 Little Goals for the New Year

In no particular order.

1. Master Hula-Hooping and do it almost every day.

2. Read more chapter books aloud with my children.

3. Walk outside more.

4. More Sunday dinners, home-made, in the dining room on the good dishes.

5. Pare down various things in my life and house, to try and have a simpler life. Get rid of excess things.

6. Try to start a small internet and flea market business.

7. Continue in my weight loss and fitness, it'd be cool to lose one full clothing/dress size by the end of the year.

8. Focus on the women's and girl's ministry ideas I have been given.

9. Do art daily - sketch, draw and even paint.

10. Canoe more often.

2011 - New Year's Greetings

May you endure another year (Luke 21:19)
with the help and grace of God.

We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day. ~Edith Lovejoy Pierce

The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul. ~ G.K.Chesterton

My Resolution

I am not a fan of New Year’s Resolutions because I have never been successful at keeping any that I have made, so far. In the spirit of optimism and new-leaf turning I am making one this year. It’s not a grand, earth changing, life altering one. It’s simple. I am resolving to be an aunt like my Aunt Teresa.


My Aunt Teresa was not related to me by blood, but by heart. She was among my parents’ closest, dearest friends and their next door neighbor for a decade, perhaps more. They remained life-long friends even after my folks moved to the West Coast and then down South. My Aunt Teresa gave me the best advice on my wedding day. “Just be nice to each other,” she said. (I share it now whenever I’m in the presence of newlyweds.) I cherish the memory. My Aunt Teresa never forgot my birthday and always sent me a card. Later on, she even remembered my children’s birthdays, even though she had only met Adam* once. For a time I was pretty good about the card thing myself, but years passed, and I slacked off. This year I have marked my calendars, and hope to follow in Aunt Teresa’s thoughtful footsteps and send my various family members & friends a card, in a timely manner, for their birthday.
That's it.
Carry on.

Watch Night - New Year's Eve

I have been going to Watch Night Services since I became a Christian in the early 1990's. When Big Daddy was appointed to his first church and we were planning our first Watch Night service as a ministry couple, I found this article on the history of such services to be very interesting. After all, I grew up Roman Catholic, in the Northeast and then later moved to the West Coast, and I had never heard of this kind of service before. The article I linked is an essay by Charyn D. Sutton. The churches where I spent my early Christian years and discipleship were predominantly Caucasian, so I was particularly fascinated by the article. Watch Night Services are strongly rooted in the African-American church tradition, and are not unheard of within the Pentecostal Community overall.


We are within the Church of God (Cleveland, TN) denomination, and the practice seems common here in the Southeastern US. Our denomination was founded by several Methodists, among others. It seems that John Wesley had established this practice among the Methodists early on. Our sister denomination, The Assemblies of God, began with the Azuza Street Pentecostal Outpouring. That event was diverse, ethnically and socially, from the very beginning. I also add to those factors that Florida is near the Bahamas and Caribbean, with many immigrants from those areas. Some of those cultural influences have strong Christian practices and history. I was very interested to find that the The Moravian Church missionaries were the first to go in many parts of the world, including the Caribbean in the 1730's. The Moravian Church seems to be the first to hold Watch Night Services.

I also checked snopes.com, and they are skeptical about the portion of the first article I linked in regards African-American slaves being sold on New Years Day, as well as any other type of debt or financial transactions occurring on that day. Snopes had an email forward version of Sutton’s essay. However, the version they had was not completely the same and not even attributed to Sutton. So, you can do the research yourself if you like, and draw your own conclusions. It’s indisputable, though, that Watch Night became tied to the African-American community because of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863.


Wikipedia says this:

“Many religious communities have a tradition of New Year's Eve being known as "Watch Night". The faithful of the community congregate in worship services commencing New Year's Eve night and continuing past midnight into the New Year. The Watch Night is a time for giving thanks for the blessings of the outgoing year and praying for divine favor during the upcoming year. Though held by some to have begun in the African American community, watch night can actually be traced back to a sect of Christians known as the Moravians who held the first Watch night Service in Herrnhut, Saxony, in 1732. The practice was later adopted by John Wesley, the founder of Methodism. Watch Night did take on special significance to African Americans on New Year's Eve 1862, however, as slaves eagerly awaited the arrival of January 1, 1863—the effective date of the Emancipation Proclamation. This particular New Year's Eve became known as "Freedom's Eve."”

Along with the prayers of thanksgiving and reflection, we do some other things in our service. We celebrate by taking Communion, and following Jesus’ humble example and washing each other’s feet, see here.

I pray that whatever you do this New Year’s Eve, you will take a moment to reflect on the past and the future and on the One who holds your life in His hands. Just as the slaves gathered in churches to pray for and await the news of their freedom, realize God has given us all a freedom in Christ.

Be safe and enjoy yourself.
Happy New Year!



Edited to add this link to Michael Benjamin's blog and a good piece he wrote about Watch Night, which contains Charyn Sutton's article now that the link in the first paragraph is no longer available.