Happy New Year! It’s All Small Stuff.

Our daughter Sarah who’s been off her left foot since the day before my birthday last year (I turned forty-seven last December 11, you do the math) and has learned to get by with her crutches, traveling on a scooter, and with a lot of help from her family at last got the stitches she’s had in her foot taken out this afternoon! I found out after Martha picked me up at work today, and for me this truly was a better day — certainly where I work is one place you cannot stand still for very long and you hardly sit down. 

And working out on the Wii Fit Plus today after I woke up brought a journal entry of mine from fifteen — wait, now it’s SIXTEEN — years ago to mind:

Psalm 130:7-8                              January 7

outreach in Billings, MT                10301.07

Let Israel hope in the LORD:

For with the LORD there is mercy,

And with him is plenteous redemption.

And he shall redeem Israel

From all his iniquities. 

Let us hope in You, Lord, for you do want us redeemed. Oh, Martha’s knee is acting up on her again, and I need to replace a headlight bulb — those sound like small things in light of the USS Tarawa departing for the Persian Gulf for a possible confrontation (OK, war) with Iraq and the reconvening of Congress, but like Joe Baldauff’s and Lesa Ofsthun’s birthdays today, they’re important to me because they’re small things in MY life. And when I honor the small stuff, I can win with the big stuff too.

Barnes, Steven, Friedman, Michael Jan, et. al. Star Trek — Deep Space Nine: The Lives of Dax. Edited by Marco Palmieri. New York: Pocket Books, 1999.

For more than three hundred years, a Trill symbionts called Dax has lived through nine lifetimes. And it’s been a fun life! From glimpses of the lives of Dax’s seven hosts before Jadzia in the TV series, authors have expertly crafted stories introducing us to pivotal moments in “Star Trek” history as well as suspending our disbelief. As the stories get closer to the wraparound story set in the “present”, though, they do get more detailed than they need to be and leave the reader wondering what the original point was. But it’s overall great entertainment!

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But they are a highly creative people, an intuitive people, who seem to use their intellect and their emotions in harmony to create new things. We believe that, given time, their potential will increase exponentially. Despite their recent troubles, and a long history of discord, we believe they are on the verge of becoming a powerful force for civilization.

(T’Pau to Lela Dax, “First Steps”)

[And my prayer requests at the bottom of these three pages for that day six months and five days before my wedding were for Lithuania’s new president, our need for leadership, and Chris @ College of E[ast] Utah.]

If we keep reading, that all makes sense.

See you this year, David