I have spent some time the last couple of days getting my 2019 calendar in order. I have been writing in the regular activities like the monthly services at the Seniors residences. I have been noting the festival dates like Ash Wednesday, Good Friday and Easter Monday. And, I have been thinking about when I might take some holidays!
Ha!I can hear your eyes rolling now! Yes, I do still write in a calendar. I carry around a book and when something new comes up I page through to the date and write it in with a pen. So old school! Several people have tried to get me on to entering things in the calendar on my phone and the one on my lap top but I resist. I like paper and pen.
There are two reasons I like to write things in my calendar despite the efficiency, speed and logic of the more modern technological way. I can see the lay out of life in a familiar way and that reassures me. But more importantly I like the way I can look back at the days past and see what happened. I can see dates scratched out and changed, notes to prepare for something coming up, and anticipated trips to outing or visits. I am not a journal writer or diary keeper. I have tried that and I fail miserably. But i write in my calendar and keep them from year to year. This morning I paged through my 2018 calendar and a flood of memories came rushing to me. There was the note abut the play I loved. There was the lunch date with my dear friends I see only twice a year. There was the arrival note for friends flying in to the airport. With each entry I relived the moment and smiled with the happy memory. It was a little trip down memory lane as I got my day underway.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not stuck in the ‘what happened’ phase of things. I am keenly looking forward to 2019 and all it will bring. But, at this January time I do like to linger in the phase of looking back and looking forward. It grounds me and delights me and inspires me.
Every year I remove a handwritten note from one calendar and place it inside the cover of the next year. The note has two scripture verses on it. One is from 2 Timothy 1:7 “God does not give us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of self-control.” The second is from Isaiah 43: 18 & 19 “Do not dwell on the past. See I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?” These serve as good reminders to me. Calendars are important to hold a pattern, and even a direction for our life, they can point to memories of good times now past but they do not hold a life. Like any tool we might use each day they give us a grounding to live faithfully.
