So who HASN’T lost anything in their life? Whether friends, families, homes, familiar stores and restaurants no longer in business, places we lived and loved, played, worked, holiday visits w. various people, loved ones who have passed, various treasured possessions, peace and quiet before a local freeway was built, health, various sources of comfort (the long-gone magazine or newspaper, etc.) -I mean, there’s no end to this while we walk the earth in these bodies.
I often wonder why I don’t live in nostalgia (in the past) longing for a do-over? I mean, I’ve also experienced loss in all those things myself.
The pandemic, as many have rightly said, the political upheavals, even extreme weather has all brought that sense of loss to much of the wide world as I write at the end of February, 2023.
Now, the Luddites are a known group who fully rebelled against the new, in particular the very real prospect of losing their professions due to the machine age in the U.K.. (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite)
Of course there is also a very real (or looking back, sometimes some or a lot imagined) sense of simplicity and peace “in the old days” which are now in our rear view mirror.
All this sort of stuff keeps me moving further into the One who is both unchanged and unchangeable -my Lord and Savior Jesus.
So the peace is in this ongoing relationship, a continuing search and discovery of my first Love. Much as my marriage to my incredible wife Wendi this is a daily and continuing learning process that brings me a comfort that no other person, place, time or other you-name-it could or can.
There is an undercurrent of fluidity in a walk. Walking of course involves movement, not passivity nor a fully stationary stance.
There has always been a market where folks make money off of the old stuff. Much of it can seem exotic to young peeps while we older ones “take a trip down memory lane” as we see an item, photo or are somehow reminded of what we had, where we were, people we were with and we experience a “warm fuzzy” feeling.
This very day I was looking at (you’d have to be somewhat of a tech geek to get this) a tiny company who makes a CP/M outboard disk-and-computer device one can plug into a modern machine in order to play those very old, text-only computer games and access files from the early days of home computing. Tech nostalgia.
I’m fond of very old radios, especially little transistor ones like my first, but also ancient shortwave receivers which takes me back to my childhood.
What I’m saying is, I appreciate nostalgia and in some ways love simple (pin-hole cameras anyone??) “old-timey” stuff. I mean, one cannot create cigarbox guitars in the woods with nothing but hand tools or even just a jack knife and not enter into some sort of nostalgia for the most part.
BUT, and YET… I don’t much sit around considering all of that because God has given me people and -plenty- of work to do in the present, vision for the future (people, work, sharing what I can with others in need) and one day I’ll literally be with Jesus and all loved ones of God- my spiritual family, so living TODAY and in the moment is in my life, the fluid, growing, going forward way in Him.
Last night I did some studying which brought me to pictures and descriptions of ancient aqueducts built all over the Roman empire. Many were true engineering marvels, often rather complex systems to bring fresh water to cities and their people. But the builders are now gone.
What we may learn from them is still worthwhile.
Our heavenly Father is living, does not change, the Lord Jesus and the Spirit of God work and move around and if we cooperate -in- and through us here and now.
Fluid? Jesus taught about “the Living Water”!
Don’t miss it by getting stuck in the past.
As always, thanks for stopping by. -Glenn
glennkaiser.com 