Out to Pastor: What’s New About A New Year

By Dr. James L. Snyder

On New Year’s Eve, The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage and I were celebrating in our living room with some hot apple cider.

As we were coming to the end of our hot apple cider, The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage looked over at me and said, “Happy New Year.” How she said it caused me to believe she was anticipating a “New Year.”

I looked at her and said very seriously, “What’s so new about this coming New Year?”

She looked at me and said, “Well, it will be 2024 and not 2023. I’m sure you can see how that’s new?”

I took a deep sip of my hot apple cider, looked at her and said, “I’ve looked at the calendar for the year 2024 and all of the months are the same as they were in 2023. Every month has the same seven week days and each of those days have 24 hours. What in the world is new about that?”

“Maybe, just maybe this New Year will be the year that you get a little bit mature.”

I thought about what she said and responded, “I’m as mature as I ever want to be.”

I looked at her and said, “What do you think I need to do to improve my maturity?”

“Well,” she said with one of her infamous grins, “maybe you could improve your listening ability this New Year. You just don’t listen when I say things and I have to repeat them over and over again.”

“What did you say?” I asked.

“That’s exactly what I mean. You may hear what I’m saying but you don’t listen to what I am saying. Maybe this year you could practice listening a little more.”

I almost asked, but I didn’t, what she would recommend that I do to practice listening.

She was not finished.

“Also, you could improve your memory. You forget so many things and I have to remind you of them all the time. Maybe you could do something to improve that part of your maturity.”

I was so afraid she would have a number three on her list.

Then it came, “And thirdly, maybe you could do something about your snoring at night. You snore so loud every night that sometimes it wakes me up.”

As I sat in my chair sipping some hot apple cider, I thought about these things, and then, she had something else to say.

“And there’s another thing you could do,” she said with a very serious perspective in her voice, “you could tell me some things I need to do to improve my maturity.”

I just looked at her, smiled, and said, “My dear, you are the most perfect person I know, and I could never think of anything that you need to do that would improve your maturity.”

She just looked at me and smiled.

It’s not very often that I get out of a mess, but I think I got out of this one. Let’s see how long this lasts.

Thinking on this, I thought of Ecclesiastes 1:9, “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.”

What more can be said?

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Dr. James L. Snyder lives in Ocala, FL with the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage. Telephone 1-352-216-3025, e-mail jamessnyder51@gmail.com, website www.jamessnyderministries.com.