"These are the Good Old Days"

I was super excited when I saw one of my favorite quotes on the wall of one of my favorite leaders: Brene Brown.  Locals may have also seen it at the lovely Freckled Hen Farmhouse:

"These are the good old days." 

Chalk it up to being an enneagram 4, but I am one of the most sentimental, nostalgia-loving people you will ever meet. My whole business is a nod to the past.  I have been deep-diving into the past to find meaning for my entire life.  I guess that makes me hyper-aware of the pitfalls of this orientation to life as well.  From the illusion of the simplicity of Amish living to the political mantra of MAGA devotees, an unobserved affinity to the past can be downright dangerous.

We were made to live in the present.  I can make such a sweeping statement based on the obvious. We have no control over the past. And only what we do in the present can create an affect on the future. We are stuck in the here and now.

Which leads me to another favorite quote, from Wolfhart Pannenberg:

"God is the power of the future." 

This statement fills me with hope. Because many people are afraid of the future.  Some are afraid of what the world looks like if climate change is not addressed. And some are afraid they won't be able to convince the ones they love to follow Jesus and get into heaven.  Still others fear what their lives will look like if other people that don't look like them get to move close to them and make choices that affect them.

Not much good has ever been accomplished by leveraging fear.  Golden calves have been erected. Millions of humans exterminated.  It gets incredibly difficult to differentiate between hate and fear; they are very different but they look incredibly similar.  Without practical plans to face the future with faith and love, humans can do some terrible things.

It is my goal to speak and lead from the confidence of God's perspective, not from my nostalgia or my fear. I don't know who you have selected to be your leaders in how you think and make decisions for yourself, but I would like to suggest that they should be people who are interested in taking you forward, not back.  Fear is not your holiest motivation.  Over and over again God communicated to humans to not be afraid.  Because God is not afraid.  God is the power of the future.