Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:

Deuteronomy 6:4

How cool is this! There is a verse of scripture that has a name! Deuteronomy 6:4 is the verse. It's name is the Shema (pronounced sha-mah) and is named for the first word in the Hebrew sentence. Shema means "hear", but with the context of taking notice and being obedient to what is heard.

(Note: Some call it Shema Yisrael, naming it from both the first and second words.)

In my New Year 2014 post, I mentioned that I do not make new year resolutions, but that I do strive to work on what I have called Projects For Life. It seems reasonable to now describe what I mean and to explain how this not only differs from a new year resolution but is, in fact, much better.

New Year resolutions, in theory, are when people make a decision for a positive thing in their life. This could be anything that they have identified in their life that needs improvement. Usual candidates include losing weight, stopping bad habits, exercising more or eating right. And there is nothing wrong with any of these resolutions. But the practice is that the resolution is set, high enthusiasm carries the person through a few days or even a week or two and then at the first failure, they give up and say forget it. This explains why a typical gym is full of new members in early January, but almost exclusively back to just the regulars by February 1st.

New year resolutions don't work for most of us because they are conceived of as a grand plan where anything less than complete success on the first attempt is a complete failure. Grand plans are great in theory, but the reality is that no plan survives first contact with reality. And that means that you will almost never hit a large goal on a first try. And therefore, despite oodles of good intention and well meaning, you have set yourself up for failure. After a few rounds of failed resolutions, many people say forget it and make the only new year resolution that they'll ever keep and say that they'll never again make a new year resolution!

Thus spake the bulldog:

You ask, What is our policy? I will say; "It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy." You ask, What is our aim? I can answer with one word: Victory -- victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival.

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (1874-1965)

Happy New Year!

Quite a few years ago, I formally abstained from making new year resolutions and have done very well at keeping to my decision. At the same time, I do believe that a program of ongoing improvement is quite appropriate and that new things should be attempted on a regular basis to prevent life becoming stale. Not that life is in any danger of being boring as a pastor, but sometimes, when the same things come up again and again, it's nice to try something new.

Growth areas in 2013 were hampered a little by the arrival of Peter William. Babies are cute, but they are also time sinks. I did make the time, by getting up early, to get my bible read through. This was partly because I had encouraged the congregation to commit to reading through the bible and as the pastor, it would be wrong to not do it myself. But also because I needed to read through the bible as part of my process for apply for my next level of ministerial license. With all of my reading requirements taken care of, I then applied for my General ministerial license and was successful. Our organization has three levels of license and I had started at the bottom level and had sat there for six years. It was time for some action! I made a good start on my church website hosting business, but I still have a few tasks left before I can take on beta-testers. And I started my blog. I'm working on getting into a regular schedule of posting, but if you're reading this, then I must have managed to complete at least one post for the year!

We have an older house. It's very nice in many ways, or at least the Queen of All She Surveys picked it, so I can only assume it's nice. I like living in it, but I'm not a big, flashy house kind of guy. As long as I have room for my computer and my lovely bride, not necessarily in that order, I'm good.

The one feature of the house that I don't care for is that it is a raised ranch. The main living area is upstairs, like a single level bungalow, with a basement exposed at the front and a built-in garage. The floor to ceiling height of the basement is not as tall as the main level. For most of the basement that's not a huge deal, but for the garage it means that there is not much headroom, and that means that the garage door mechanism is old-fashioned because no one makes slim-line garage hardware any more. Well, maybe they do, but no one builds low headroom garages anymore!

Yesterday, our garage door mechanism started getting stuck. For some non-obvious reason, it was sticking when about three quarters closed and then the safety mechanism was causing it to open back up. Quite annoying. The fact that we were trying leave for a church event just under three hours away did not improve my opinion. I slipped the clutch on the mechanism and opened and shut the door manually as we left and when we returned.