Monday’s Here

I realize we nickname Monday with a lot of slang talk…

It’s a blue, manic, and “on no it’s Monday” Monday…. In the season, it’s known as “Monday Night Football” night and people go crazy staying up later than normal just to indulge. And, tonight is the first Presidential Debate between the two parties candidates.

Why did they plan the debate on the same night as the NFL’s premiere night game? Go figure. I can just hear the Mama’s and the Papa’s singing:

Monday, Monday, can’t trust that day
Monday, Monday, sometimes it just turns out that way

For many church leaders it’s the day we analyze what worked on Sunday, and what needs to be improved. We question why so-and-so did not make it to church, or why the church wasn’t ready without a last moment refresh or change of routine.

Why Monday? What does it mean? Essentially, and this is found in many cultures over the centuries, this first day of the week was represented by the Moon. It makes sense that it would migrate from Moon Day to Monday over time. However, depending upon the time period, culture, country, or language, any one of our 7 days could be known by any other word.

It’s a rather unique study to determine why we call the days and months by their names we accept as normal. Back in the 1980’s there was an International Organization for Standardization (ISO) that had a main focus for standardizing words and meaning between different countries, languages and cultures.

The purpose of this standard is to provide an unambiguous and well-defined method of representing dates and times, so as to avoid misinterpretation of numeric representations of dates and times, particularly when data are transferred between countries with different conventions for writing numeric dates and times.
(Click here for more info)

Their focus was standardization, but here in America we still struggle with old measurement systems and the new standards. Maybe we’ve simply accepted this as normal, but I still struggle with understanding the “liter” size of engines, when, and this is surprising, we never understood the “cubic inch” or “horse power” denotation of engines of yesteryear. Our speedometers are at least giving us tools to convert between one standard and the other… Go ahead. Think about it for a moment. With a switch, many dashboard components can display in “standard” or “metric”, at the very least there are both numbers preprinted and the sweep of the display hand an help you read kilometers or miles per hour.

For those who hesitate to call the days of week, or months of the year, by any given name, it is simply the First Day, or First Month. First day of the work week, or First day after the weekend… Why do this? Some do not want to give reference to some medieval time or god to use for the title of a specified time period. Some believe it is giving credence to a false god.

A side note of interest, many cultures still have their New Year celebration at various times that do not equal the 365th day of a year that begins with January 1. The Jewish, Muslim and Chinese New Year celebration are based on a Lunar cycle, and not a Solar cycle. 

But why do we struggle with this first day so much? It’s often that the weekend is over and work begins. At least according to many folks working schedule. Retail and tech and other fields of labor often work 7 days per week, and some have shifts covering 24 hours per day. For those that count Monday as their first working day of the week, then it’s after the ending of the weekend when their time off may have been more liberally relaxed – and now it’s back to the grind.

In our culture, Sunday is the ending of the week, although many calendars have it as the First Day of the week. When we retell the Creation events, Sunday is the 7th day, and on this day God rested from all his work.

Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made. (Genesis 2:1-3 NKJV)

For me, I try to make Monday a slow day of recovery. Sunday is my hardest work day. My business is God and that is a 7/24 life, but our corporate gathering is Sunday morning and I strive to make sure we are ready for the Worship and Word celebration.

Back in the day of bi-vocational pastoring, Monday was typically like everyone else. My recovery was slower, and the week felt longer! The closer I get to retiring years, the more I realize that it matters little what day of the week it is… It simply takes longer to recover….

How about you?

Start Your Day Right

Before you cram your day with busyness…

Plan your day in order to Start it Right!

When I first started working in IT (Information Technology), life was simple. I worked an evening job for a bank whose name changed about 6 times in 18 months. My big responsibility was balancing banks that we processed their daily checks and deposits. From a start of about 10 banks it ended up being over 50 by the time I left there. Running computers, check sorters, calculators became a passion – it was fun!

And they paid me to have fun!

During down times (Computer, power, weather, traffic… you name it…) we played war games with rubber bands, went on walks through downtown Houston (at night), found new eateries to try out, slept, or even did school work. Most of it came at a time when there were better things to do with our time than just sit.

I generally hate sitting, unless I’m driving somewhere! My mind never stops working. In fact, I woke at 4:45 am thinking about all the stuff I have to get accomplished to day. Hence, the reason for my blog.

Schedules.

I like to think I am pretty organized, but truth be told I feel like I am always coming at something totally unprepared for success. My “to do” list gets lengthier by the day. My time is often not my own – it belongs to the task list.

This is mostly my own fault. I take on too much when I should just learn to say no, and at times I am needing distraction so a new task makes sense.

Still, working through a task list is one of the most productive ways I can get things accomplished.

You will find there are things that will impact the most perfectly scheduled day. An example is my truck. It’s now 13 years old and has 289,000 miles and still going strong. The diesel engine will outlast the frame and components of the truck. I’ve only had a few things happen that stopped the truck from working the way it was intended, and those things normally take time out of an already busy schedule. Like the time I came home from Oregon and my Alternator started going out. Of course, with two batteries that probably meant I would loose my lights before getting home. Several hours of testing and getting to and from the mechanic ate up more time that I needed!

How do you handle schedule changes? If it does not impact what’s really important with the day you have to learn to go with the flow. If it DOES impact then you have to look for productive alternatives. That normally means carrying my work with me wherever I go!

Distractions.

If you have a creative and roaming mind like mine, then it’s easy to get distracted. A few weeks ago I was involved in an event and my mind was totally focused for about 4 days on the needs of the event. I was very tired and starting to feel unproductive. I needed a break. What I needed was lawn mower time! I generally mow about 3 acres regularly. These several hours of “downtime” are a great distraction for my mind. I listen to my Nano, and let my subconscious handle all the problems that I’m dealing with. Between my tiredness and obligations that included church on Sunday, the rain was keeping from the appointed task. Sunday afternoon, the rain had stopped, the grass had dried and I had a couple of hours of “me” time. It was a good thing because it rained heavily on Monday!

Finally.

I suspect I am writing all of this before the sun comes up for this one reason. You need to schedule your time, but factor in down time with distractions that give you relief from your overly schedule life. Put God, spouse and family at the top of your schedule. Work will take care of itself during the 8 hours you devote to the job, but the other three are, or they should be, the top focus in your life.

Listen to the words of Jesus for a moment…

“Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. (Matthew 6:31-34 NKJV)

“Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes. (Matthew 6:34 MSG)

Blessings!

The Last Post for 2013 – A Thought About Days

This is my last post for 2013. I promise. My mind is full about this past year, and what 2014 will reveal…

Everyone seems to be focusing on the “Year in Review” – top stories, pictures, calamities, deaths, births… You name it. If we could categorize it, then we can list it, and maybe someone out there really cares.

As I mentioned previously, we are not able to “countdown” backwards as so many things in life are capable of doing. (Read Here) If we could countdown to the ending of our life then we may make some better choices the closer we get to the ending.

All of this has got me to thinking about the calendaring of things. We just celebrated Christmas 2013, my grandbaby’s second birthday, and New Years is just a few days ahead.

Just about everything we do is based upon the accepted Gregorian calendar that has been around, and adjusted, for hundreds of years. In my programming days, we would convert the Gregorian Date (MM/DD/YY) to the Julian Date (DDDYY) in order to add and subtract number of days and then use the routine to convert back to the Gregorian view. Both represented essentially the same day, but each had a different purpose – and math was easier to handle in the Julian numbering scheme!

The Bible counts days differently, most revolving around the Equinox – you know, when each Season gets its start, Spring (around March 21), Summer (around June 21), Fall (around September 21) and Winter (around December 21). Each start and ending of the season varies by hours because the Gregorian calendar accounts for the E-X-A-C-T length of the year, and it is a few hours more than 365 days – roughly, 5 hours 49 minutes 12 seconds…

Thus making the need for a Leap Year that adds an extra day to our calendaring, and if you were born on February 29, then you get a true celebration of your birth based upon this math formula:

“According to the Gregorian calendar, which is the civil calendar in use today, years evenly divisible by 4 are leap years, with the exception of centurial years that are not evenly divisible by 400. Therefore, the years 1700, 1800, 1900 and 2100 are not leap years, but 1600, 2000, and 2400 are leap years.”  (http://aa.usno.navy.mil/faq/docs/leap_years.php)

So, if you are using the Gregorian Calendar (most of the world does), then you are safe in assuming that someone, somewhere, has the number of the years, months, days and dates under control and a semblance of order will always be followed.

The big problem is the conversion from one calendar system to another. It is too lengthy a list to talk about here, but suffice it to say that most of us speak on the same calendar system regardless of its imperfections. Few of us know how to deal with the other calendar systems.

For example, take the Mayan calendar. We all realized that a certain date in 2012 represented the last of their calendar – and we did not know what to do about it because the Mayan’s no longer existed. Conspiracy theories abounded about what would happen on that final date. Sort of reminded me about the Y2K issues!!

The Biblical dating method revolved around the Lunar calendar and the equinoxes. The popular Gregorian and Julian calendars struggled with the Jewish holidays since they changed every year based on the Lunar cycle. Here’s one verbiage to recite the reason.

“The calculation of Easter is complicated because it is linked to (an inaccurate version of) the Hebrew calendar. Jesus was crucified immediately before the Jewish Passover, which is a celebration of the Exodus from Egypt under Moses. Celebration of Passover started on the 14th or 15th day of the (spring) month of Nisan. Jewish months start when the moon is new, therefore the 14th or 15th day of the month must be immediately after a full moon. It was therefore decided to make Easter Sunday the first Sunday after the first full moon after vernal equinox. Or more precisely: Easter Sunday is the first Sunday after the “official” full moon on or after the “official” vernal equinox. The official vernal equinox is always 21 March. The official full moon may differ from the real full moon by one or two days.” (wiki.answers.com)

Why oh why I did ever start this post? I have so many questions about calendars and timing!

1. Why do we have an odd number of days we revolve around the sun (365) and our week is not divided in a more orderly? (Answer: God created in 6 days, rested 1 day, and we have a calendar divided into this fashion.)
2. Why do some months have more days than others, or, why can we not have equal days in all months? (Answer: One person simply says the Greek made it up, we’re stuck with it – so live with it!)
3. Why is our time made up like it is? 60 seconds (how long is a second???), 60 minutes, 24 hours…  Why is it not more equally distributed? Calculating number of hours and minutes takes some special understanding about how to do this and be correct.
4. Why is a day 24 hours, and not more easily managed in other countable numbers – say 20 hours?

Okay… Enough with this. Let me get to my point.

My daily reading of the Writers Almanac and the various “This Day in History” publications, got me to thinking about “what” we remember, and “why” it might be important to remember such historical items. I have written about George Santayana before and his famous quote:

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”

History is very important. Not only to watch out for the pitfalls that a previous generation fell into, but to honor those special events with appropriate memorials – whether a birthday or event. That’s why we celebrate Christmas in unique ways, birthdays with celebrations, and tragedies with solemn occasion.

A prayer of Moses found in the 90th Psalms declare a few things about our life, and death…

• Psa 90:9  …we spend our years as a tale that is told.
• Psa 90:10  The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.
• Psa 90:12  So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom

Our lives are spent as a tale that is told, with age limitations as was prescribed by God to Moses, and we must number these days so as to be counted as a wise person…

The older I get the less interested I am in having a birthday celebration – yet I am very interested in celebrating the birthday of a child. They count down the days, just like they do with Christmas or vacation. They realize it is special, although not the full reason. A child may not understand the labor of their mom, nor the worry of sleepless nights when sick, nor those first moments of you stepping out to experience portions of living without them constantly there holding your hand. These moments cause all of us to reflect backwards.

• I remember when my kids first started walking, and how cautious we were with them around sharp corners and edges, but they became daredevils with bikes, rocking horses, skis and skateboards.
• How about when you give them the responsibility of their first slingshot or BB gun or pocket knife.
• Or when one is carried home by a neighbor because they fell from the second floor to the landing.
• Or when one busts open the back of their head while playing in the living room.
• Or walks into the store unassisted and alone for the first time while you waited in the car chewing off your finger nails.
• Or leaves you at the door as they begin their first day of schooling.
• Or sleeps over with a friend, or goes away on a trip with someone other than yourself.
• Or has their first heartbreak, or fight, with their first special boy/girl friend.

I might not remember these days on a calendar, and they may just hang around in my memory banks and show up in the most unusual of ways. But they are important. Very important at the time they happen. But they all make up the existence of life that one celebrates, often on the anniversary of their birth.

So, let’s make each day worth it – responding appropriately to all the dates and events that need to be responded to. Let’s make each celebration appropriately memorable as it adds to our “tale that is told”. Let’s not forget anyone or any celebration. Let’s let others honor the things they choose to remember and not hold it over their heads if our memorials are not as important to them as it is to us.

When you get to the end of this year, and if you choose to reflect backwards over the events of 2013, may it be noted that those things you choose to remember are really what’s most important to you. And those things that you honor and remember are part of the “tale of your life…”. Live it well. Tell it well.