2020 Hindsight

   A whole year has passed since I wrote a blog post on 20/20 Vision on December 30, 2019. We were about to begin a new decade and I wondered what we would find in it. Like many others, we expected life to continue as usual although there would naturally be unknown changes along the way. No one could foresee how life would be turned upside down a quarter of the way through 2020. The enemy was too small to be seen but it spread around the globe and life was disrupted for everyone. We made the best of it and did what we had to do.

  The year started out calmly as I wrote, scrapbooked, and crocheted. In January we put a 1000 piece puzzle together and had no idea we would do a half dozen more before spring came in all its glory. 

  I had a CT scan in February and learned the spot the doctor had been watching on my kidney for several years had grown and was malignant. I was scheduled to have surgery in May but didn't tell anyone. I didn't think it was necessary for people to think about it that long. Besides, we had more exciting news to think about. In February we learned that after waiting nine years a new grandchild was on the way. It was a definite answer to much earnest prayer. "With God nothing is impossible."

  Leroy was off work six weeks after COVID-19 broke out in March. Everything was canceled and church was on livestream from March to June. It was better than nothing but we missed the fellowship.

   Easter came in April but there was no Good Friday or Easter service in church. Leroy went back to working three days per week and we started circulating a bit more. I finished a book I had been working on for a year and a half and sent it to the reviewers. There's still a lot of work before it can be published and I doubt it will be on the market before the end of 2021. I volunteered at the Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society for thirteen years, helping Carolyn Wenger prepare things for the archives. They closed because of the virus and then Carolyn died of cancer in April. It seemed like a good time for me to quit. It's something I wanted to do for a long time before I started and now I gave it up.

  Our children came in May to do some yard work for us. They spread mulch and replaced some overgrown bushes. That day I told them I was scheduled for kidney cancer surgery on May 29. 

  Leroy was not allowed to enter the hospital so he could only drop me off and go home. It turned out to be a more major surgery than the doctor anticipated. I was in the hospital nine days and in rehab another seven days. No visitors were allowed all that time but I could talk to people on the phone. Our sons looked after Leroy, cooking and doing laundry for him. I finally came home on June 16. The good news was that they got all the cancer and I did not need any chemo or radiation. 

  Our daughter came from Ohio and was here for a week. I was grateful for her help. It took me several months to make a full recovery and by then the summer was over. The virus slacked off over summer but things were still canceled all year as we went along. In-person church services resumed in June but with some changes in the routine. Restaurants and other businesses that had been closed on the governor's orders were open again but with safety guidelines. Face masks, hand sanitizer, and social distancing was a part of life in 2020. 

  Like many other things, the annual Berean Meetings in July were canceled. And cancelations continued through August. The summer passed with no Bible school, reunions, trips, or other things that we had always taken for granted as a normal part of life. Our second great-grandchild was born May 14, but due of the circumstances, we did not get to see him until they came in from Ohio in August. Colton Miller was three months old before we saw him in person.

   Schools had been closed since March but opened again in September with some modifications. My newest book of children's stories was released this month and on September 24 the long-awaited granddaughter arrived. Abigail Ruth Stauffer is a dream come true was a bright highlight in a dark and disrupted year.

   As the weather cooled in October, virus cases began to rise again. But the shutdown in the spring had caused so much damage to the economy the governor knew he cannot do it again. At the end of the month our daughter came for another week to help me with some cleaning. We shivered through the outdoor wedding of a grandson on October 30.

   There was plenty of hot air all year with the presidential election taking place in November. President Trump lost the election and made a fool of himself by refusing to concede and trying to overturn the results. I never in my life saw such a poor loser in an election. 

  Leroy's brother's wife died with the virus after being in the hospital two weeks and I also lost one of my old friends the same week. 

   We had a most unusual Thanksgiving dinner. We planned to have the traditional turkey meal with one of our sons and his family, but he had a sore throat that morning. Any other year we wouldn't have taken that so seriously but out of caution we decided to exchange portions of the food we had prepared and eat at our own tables. We visited by Zoom on our computers while we ate.

  The virus could not stop Christmas from coming in December. I did most of my Christmas shopping online this year and was finished the beginning of the month. My daughters-in-law came to bake cookies, I mailed cards and letters, and wrapped gifts as usual. Our children and grandchildren were here on Christmas day. We wore face masks and kept hand sanitizer handy. The only ones missing were an Ohio grandson, his wife, and two children---our great-grandchildren. 

   The last week of the month one of Leroy's old buddies also died with the virus. Our "youth group" is leaving this world for a better one at an alarming rate.

  Tonight we reach the end of this unforgettable year. Looking back at this year, there was a mixture of joys and sorrows as always but also unexpected things on a scale we never imagined. The virus rages on with no end in sight. We are thankful we have escaped so far. Only God knows how long it will go on. We can look toward the future and the new year of 2021 with the confidence that God is in control and we are safe in Him no matter what happens. 

Controversial Issues

 The election is finally over and that fuss has died down. I was exceedingly weary of and disgusted with all the political posts on social media. But while that has faded out, other controversial subjects continue to swirl on social media.

People are posting things for and against wearing a mask, for and against vaccines. Each side presents "convincing evidence" for their position. How are we supposed to know who is right in these completely opposite positions?  

I've come to the conclusion that the only thing I learn from the things people post is what they think. If someone is against vaccines, that is what they will post. Same for masking or unmasking, voting in elections, abortion, sexual abuse, racism, and other controversial issues. Social media gives people a virtual soap box from which to shout out their opinions.

I know what I think on these subjects but there is no point in me posting anything on social media about it. If people do not agree with me, what I post will either be ignored or start an argument. I got sucked into that a couple times before I learned to keep my mouth shut.  What I say won't change their minds and they won't change mine. The things people are wound up over will eventually dissolve and they will go on to something else.

In all fairness, there are some advantages to social media. It helps us keep in contact with family and friends who live far from us. In an instant, I can hear from my niece in Bangladesh and see pictures from the refugee camp where she works. I can get the news from the lives of my brothers in Canada and Guatemala without waiting or needing a stamp. It's a great improvement over the snail mail we used years ago. 

Social media is like all other forms of communication. These things are not wrong in themselves. It's how you use it that makes it right or wrong. 

Newborn at Christmas

 Yesterday I had the privilege of babysitting Abigail while her mother did some shopping. It's been a long time since I had a baby in the house, but a mother never forgets how to care for an infant. 

Neither have I forgotten some of the thoughts I had the Christmases I had a new baby, especially those who were born in the fall and were still tiny and helpless at Christmas. Holding a newborn at Christmas helps to bring the true meaning of Christmas to life. This was even more so yesterday when I held this long-awaited little girl who was born in answer to prayer. The Jews had waited thousands of years for God to answer their prayers to fulfill His promise to send the Messiah. And when He did, they couldn't believe it because they were not expecting the Messiah to come in the form of a tiny newborn Baby.

This morning I spent nearly an hour hunting a poem I remembered from those Christmases years ago when I had a newborn. I finally found it in a yellowed paperback book of meditations for new mothers. This was written at a time when mothers (like me) did not have nurseries but put the baby in a crib beside their own bed.

Within the crib that stands beside my bed

A little form in sweet abandon lies

And as I bend above with misty eyes

I know how Mary's heart was comforted.

O world of Mothers! blest are we who know

The ecstasy--the deep God-given thrill

That Mary felt when all the earth was still

In that Judean starlight long ago!

Anne P. L. Field (1874-1947)

The Spoiled King

There was once a great king who was very wealthy. He was the most powerful man in the land and was always able to buy anything his heart desired.

One day the king saw a lovely vineyard and decided to buy it. But the owner refused to sell at any price. The king had never in his life been in a situation where he could not buy what he wanted. He stormed and pouted like a spoiled child. He lay on his bed and refused to eat.

Determined to get what he wanted, the king began plotting to unlawfully seize the vineyard. When he managed to do it, God passed judgment upon him. This story is in 1 Kings 21 but you can read the modern version in today's newspaper.

If you want your children to grow up to be men and women of integrity, don't give them everything they want. Make them work for it or learn to do without. And when they lose at playing a game, teach them that being a good sport and gracious loser is more important than winning. If they don't learn these things when they are young they will make fools of themselves when they are adults.

Seven Men

    Seven Men Who Rule the World From the Grave is the title of a book by Dave Breese. I read the book ten years ago and wrote a blog post about it. I just went through the book again and will only give a summary this time. 

   The seven men who rule the world from the grave and their ideas in a nutshell are:

Charles Darwin--evolution

Karl Marx--socialism

Julius Wellhausen--humanism

Sigmund Freud--sexual revolution

John Dewey--liberal education (no absolutes)

John Maynard Keynes--government economics (deficit spending)

Soren Kierkegaard--situation ethics

  Things have certainly not improved in the last ten years and the book is just as relevant today as it was the first time I read it.

If you would like to read the longer version, you can find it here.

https://stauffer-scribbler.blogspot.com/search?q=seven+men

Take-Aways

 Last evening was the concluding service in a week of revivals meetings at our church. Kevin Hurst was the speaker and delivered excellent messages. We may be a tiny bit biased because he is our nephew and grew up in our congregation. But it's more than that. He is a deep thinker and dug to the root of the subject. Here are a few of my take-aways from the week.

1. "You don't HAVE a soul. You ARE a soul and have a body."

Because we are temporal human beings we tend to think of things in the here and now. The fact is that we are eternal souls housed in a physical body. The soul continues to live on after the body dies. Where it goes depends on the choices we made while the soul was in the body.

2. "Be an example of the believers in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity." Although this was written to a young man, Timothy, it applies to every believer of any age. Professing to be a Christian isn't enough. We must live it out in every area of life---in the words we say, the lifestyle we live, the way we treat other people, in our attitudes, in difficult circumstances, and moral purity. Those five words encompass every area of life. And living it out takes a lifetime.

3. Joseph is one of the few men in the Bible that nothing bad is said about him. His faith was built on a solid foundation and made it possible for him to (a) resist temptation (b) endure suffering (c) forgive quickly. According to human reasoning, he had every right to pity himself and give up on God. But he was faithful and eventually saw the big picture. He told his brothers, "You meant it for evil but God meant it for good." It is not wrong to be tempted or to wonder why. It only becomes sin when we yield to the temptation or doubt God.

4.  It only took one sin for Adam and Eve to be exiled from their garden home. No amount of good deeds could buy it back. We cannot save ourselves with any amount of good deeds. We need someone who can forgive our sins and save us from our foolish selves.

5. "Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,—

Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own."

(James Russell Lowell)

East and West Meet at Lancaster

 On Friday evening, October 30, we attended the wedding of our grandson, Marcus Stauffer, to Irene Mbilinyi.

Marcus was born in Haiti and brought to this country by his adoptive parents twenty-four years ago when he was two years old. Irene was born in Tanzania and came to this country from and orphanage at the age of nine. She went back and forth several times but spent most her time in California with her foster family. She knew someone in Lancaster, Pa. and went there to attend college. That is where she and Marcus met. They were born on opposite sides of the world and lived on opposite coasts of the United States. Whoever would have dreamed they would get together?

They planned to use a small barn on a relative's property for the wedding but then decided it was too small for the 75 people who would attend. So the ceremony was held on the lawn behind the barn and the reception in a tent. That would have been perfect except for the weather. Fortunately, we were warned to dress warm so we had heavy coats and a blanket. But the poor bridal party shivered through the ceremony with no protection. Halfway through the ceremony Marcus took his suit coat off and put it on Irene. Black skin isn't any warmer than white skin!

The ceremony was short and sweet and then everyone made a beeline for the tent where it was a little warmer. We braved the cold long enough for a grandparents photo. We are the only grandparents Marcus has.

The buffet table at the reception offered us an array of choices. It was all very good and plentiful.

Marcus and Irene took the weekend for a short two-day honeymoon and will be living near Lancaster while continuing their studies in nursing. We wish them success in all their endeavors.