simply saturday
In the face of other things in mind and to blog about, I think this editorial from the NYT (scroll down) is an intriguing idea, our Earth calendar year 2025 half behind us and half ahead of us, to contemplate and perhaps reset ourselves. Halfway points are often benchmarks anyway; daughter Malinda's June 25 birthday is alway halfway from Christmas and halfway there.
And it had occurred to me that my upcoming birthday (knock, knock, wishing me long years) will mark exactly half my life ago, on my 45th birthday, that I finally started theological seminary and headed into what my father suggested was my destiny. Do we have destinies? IDK, but that one did feel right to me.
Anyway, half of 2025 done and half to go. Evaluating: what's been right and good? Maybe all of it, eh? As Linda and I sometimes observe aloud, "We're both still alive!!" Early dawning and, remembering a song they used to close broadcasting with every evening on UF radio when Philip and I were freshmen, "It's almost tomorrow, and here comes the sun."
It was The Dreamweavers.
Back to Anyway: what can I make of my second half of 2025? Well, deeper into Retirement. There are things in life that get set in one's mind like concrete - - comes to mind the drive to up and relocate to a new place and job every three years those Navy years, it took me several years after Navy retirement to shake that. This half of life, writing and preaching a sermon every week, or once a month but having it occupy my thoughts from the last one until I stepped out of the pulpit from the next one - - it has taken me a year, but I'm finally shed of that drive.
So, what for the second half of 2025? Health, maybe? Not much on New Years Resolutions or Giving Up for Lent, but I can keep on keeping on with my weight loss program, which is working with little to zilch pain as long as I don't get sick of coleslaw for breakfast and lettuce salad for supper. I could say "walk more," but I know deep down well that's not going to happen. Maybe go once a week for oysters at Gene's and Captain's Table and Hunt's. I like that one.
How about something mental? Okay, for starters I'll try to stay sane while 7H is chaotic like this for the kitchen project, that's mental balancing, in fact, it already is. Maybe read more, put down everything else and read The Atlantic and The New Yorker soon as they arrive in the mail. Maybe hone my Lone Bible Study sessions and blog something faithfully once or twice a week instead of random. Maybe sit here on 7H Porch, or at my 7H Bay Window, and finally work out Why I'm Here and What Life's About.
Still sitting here, maybe keep on keeping on struggling with the challenge JWST and Hubble lay on my Earth-bound Xnty, the realization that my God has always been too small: S/He (It seems irreverent and impersonal, but maybe that's the right way, IDK) is not at all bothered about my sins, and simply IS. Baruch ata, Adonai Eloheinu, Melech haOlam. "Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the Universe." That's all I need to say or pray.
BTW, my pic this morning: have you ever wondered what those cloud people think about as their boat whisks them off into oblivion? I have.
And, oh: here's that NYT essay that stirred my Saturday morning.
Better half
On Wednesday, we will be exactly halfway through the year — 182 days on either side of July 2, the precise midpoint of 2025. I’ve never clocked this date before: the year’s high noon, the moment when the teeter-totter is perfectly parallel to the pavement. There’s something satisfying about having exactly as much road behind you as you have before you. Look over your shoulder. Where have you been? And where on earth are you going?
We usually make resolutions for the year on Jan. 1, in the grip of winter. The delirium of the holidays has concluded, it’s cold and likely gray outside, we are quite possibly hungover. Here’s where we traditionally set our goals for the year to come, in this depleted state. I’ve long endorsed the Always Be Resolving approach to change — you don’t need a special day in order to declare a resolution. But it does feel administratively appropriate to do it on the first day of the calendar year, when the months unfurl before us like an unpainted canvas.
This year, I propose July 2 for a sunnier moment at which to take stock of the year so far and, if it feels right, to make some achievable resolutions for the second half of the year. The sun is out. We’re in summer mode, a little less coiled up than we might have been in January. Our resolutions might be more self-compassionate, more optimistic than they were in winter. Think of it as a resolution reset. When Dec. 31 arrives, how do you want your life to be a little different? Perhaps there’s something you resolved on Jan. 1 that you’ve fallen behind on and you want to reframe it for the back half of the year. Maybe there’s something you’ve been meaning to do and six months is the perfect window in which to achieve it.
I’m skeptical of New Year’s resolutions as they’re usually executed: Here’s a way in which you’re falling short. No more horsing around, now it’s time to straighten up and fly right. The Summer Reset (if I capitalize it, it feels more official) is a different practice. These pronouncements should be summer-tinged, with an emphasis on possibility over punishment. A friend recently told me she’d resolved to ask “Does this make my life bigger?” before she made any decision. I might try this one. You might resolve to spend more time with people around whom you feel like the best version of yourself. Let the resolutions be additive, celebratory, exciting. Make them about increasing joy, about being new and radiant and more enthusiastic about the things and people you love. Happy New Half of the Year. Let’s make it the best half yet.