Tag: the new year

Reflecting………

Kathy S. Parish5 Comments
World War II ration books

My beautiful 93-year-old mother came to live with us this past October. She is getting frailer and has some problems with memory. She fills her days with putting photographs in albums and collecting items to donate to the Cleburne County historical society. When I asked about her apparent compulsion to get this done now if not sooner, she said she wanted to do these things before she couldn’t remember. Therefore, these remnants of WWII ration books have come to light. They made me keenly aware of the advantages I have had in this lifetime as contrasted with her life through the Great Depression and WWII.

Her books have several full pages of these blue stamps. She says she thinks they must have been fuel rations because her family did not have a vehicle and didn’t need to buy gasoline. I have Googled as much as I care to and can’t locate a clear description of exactly what the various “stamps” represented.

I think these are food ration stamps.

I have learned that there were stamps for various food items and stamps for various rationing periods. The ration week ran Saturday to Saturday. Mom couldn’t remember what the numbers and letters represented because “Daddy and Momma took care of all that since I was just a teenager.” From reading novels set in WWII I have learned that meat, cheese, butter, and sugar were rationed. Can we even comprehend what it was like to have these items not available any time we want them?

Mom’s family on the “home front”: dad Woodie, mom Eliza, my mother Jessie, her sister Georgia

The oldest sibling, J. B. “Jake” Harmon, was serving with a tank battalion in Europe at this time. I’ll have more about his service later.

All of this made me wonder how the people of our nation would deal with rationing now. It seems that many of us have the perspective that life, this nation, and the government owe us something. Disasters strike and the response is never quick enough or complete enough. We view the privilege of being free and prosperous as ours alone, something we definitely don’t want to share with people from other countries who come here seeking a better life for themselves and their children. The sense of patriotism that was part of day to day life in the 1940s seems to be a thing of the past. Hats off and standing for the national anthem are frequently omitted in various settings.

I have the feeling that today’s population would complain with bitter insistence that we are entitled to better things if faced with the same realities that my mother’s generation accepted as their lot in life. I fear I might be one of those people. Tom Brokaw (in his book The Greatest Generation) said that the men and women of my mother’s generation had values of “personal responsibility, duty, honor, and faith” that made them able to defeat Hitler and leave us with the economic affluence, scientific progress, and vision that has made America great. Have we lost touch with those values? Have we lost a sense of appreciation for how far this nation has come? Have we lost the ability to value simple things like truth, right and wrong, and living for some higher calling than our own pleasure?

So, my set of New Year’s resolutions: To start each day with a prayer of gratitude that I have it so good, to live each day trying to be a better person than the day before, and to end each day thanking God that His grace has seen me through the day, no matter the challenges.

What about you? I’d love to read your responses.

Hope for 2019. . .

Kathy S. Parish2 Comments
View of “Lake Donnie” here on Persimmon Ridge, our home……

The new year is almost here. It’s really a bit unsettling, you know, to view the series of celebrations from across the globe as midnight 2018 strikes and 2019 is born. Even the time zones here in the U.S. result in a wavelike stream of “newness” as the midnight hour comes and goes in the blink of an eye, the passing of a breath, a flash of awareness. So much emphasis is placed on the strike of a clock, drop of a ball or the click of a digital display. We are schooled to believe that there should be some tangible act to mark the transition from old to new.

We are showered with best and worst lists of pop culture and politics, music and sports. Weather statistics from 2018 are organized and analyzed and presented to us in charts and graphs. We are encouraged to make all kinds of positive life changes, since we must need to take better care of ourselves in some way. And thus are born New Year’s parties and kisses and toasts and resolutions. Yet what really changes? The calendar on the wall, the display on electronic devices, a legal holiday from work and life goes on as it did before.

Please don’t misunderstand. I believe the traditions of reflection on the past and anticipation of a new set of 365 days, unmarred by tragedy or life stress, are valuable. We long to make tangible the intangible. We long for new beginnings. We long for renewed hope. I remember a passage from Isaiah:

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?…”

Isaiah 43:18-19b (NIV)

I have sermon notes in the margin of my Bible. The speaker suggested that remembering successes leads to pride and remembering failures leads to guilt, both pride and guilt being bad things. Perhaps that was a good message for Isaiah’s audience. I’m not sure it speaks to me tonight.

I want to remember the good things of this year–new lives added to our family, the times I have caught my breath at the beauty of a sunrise or sunset, the satisfaction of teaching children’s Bible classes, the emotion accompanying songs of praise in worship. I want to remember the kind words spoken to me, the unexpected pleasant surprises, the gratification of seeing patients do well after I’ve been involved in their care.

And I want to learn from the year’s failures, from the times a more thoughtful choice might have avoided future distress, from the times I could have expressed my thoughts better in a blog or note or paragraph. I want to be more patient, kind, and, above all, more loving and remembering the times that I failed to show those qualities may help me achieve a needed adjustment of attitude!

I believe both of these exercises can help me hope. I suspect hope is what a lot of the world needs right now. I know I do. I hope for a healthy family and one particular restored relationship. I hope for peace. Many hope for food and clean water and shelter. We all hope for a government that governs for all the people with integrity and in a civil manner. What about hoping for cleaner speech in television and movies because we all really don’t talk like that? We need hope for a world where families don’t have to travel hundreds of miles to escape violence and death and poverty only to be met with a “no admission” sign.

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

Hebrews 11:1 (NIV)

I guess my faith is not strong enough, because I certainly cannot be sure that some of the things I expressed hope for will come about in this current climate, culture, world. But I do know who true hope and peace and joy reside in–Jesus.

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Isaiah 9:6 (NIV)

May your 2019 be filled with peace of mind and heart, the joy of knowing life in Jesus, and the love of family and friends.