I gave up trying to satisfy a “Ben Franklin,” or a “Day-Timer” years ago, but a good desk calendar remains indispensable. I like the ones with the whole week on two pages because you can see all you have to do that week at a glance, and yet have enough room to write everything in. Two years ago I had one with classic New Yorker cartoons. Last year I had one with a different illumination from hand-scripted texts for each new week.
January 1 – 1863: Confederate forces retake Galveston, Texas
January 2 – 1905: Japan takes Port Arthur from the Russians
January 3 – 1777: Washington defeats Cornwallis at Princeton
January 4 - 871: Alfred defeated by the Danes at Reading
January 5 – 1477: The Battle of Nancy ends the Burgundy wars
January 6 – 1781: Great Britain defeats France at the battle of Jersey
January 7 – 1942: The Siege of Bataan begins
When I was a kid I would have loved such a desk calendar. I would have sat down immediately upon receiving it and read straight through from New Year’s Day to New Year’s Eve. But now I wonder if I’ll make it to my birthday in April before I find another, more irenic desk calendar necessary.
When I was a kid I used to read accounts of the Greek victories over Persia, Scipio’s victory over Hannibal (I always root against battle elephants), Arnold’s victory at Saratoga, or Patton’s success against Rommel with the same excitement I got at watching football. Now that I am much older and have gotten to know one of Rudder’s Rangers, a survivor of the Bataan Death March, veterans of Korea and Viet Nam, and have conducted several funerals at Arlington National Cemetery, war had lost its excitement.
The two most famous quotes about war to come from our Civil War are Sherman’s quote about war being “hell” (he used the word, not as an expletive, but descriptively, so I do not feel indelicate in quoting him in a church bulletin), and Lee’s about the danger of “growing fond” of war. Lee’s remarks are understandable in light of his great success – few in history were as good at it as he was. I doubt Lee would have made such a remark after Pickett’s charge. Since I pray every day for friends – dads in our own congregation – who are at war, or are headed to war, I find, on January 3, that I have had my fill of a battle a day.
I want to remind us of two things as we begin another year of life and service together. The first is that we must remain constant in prayer for our military families – for Paul Abila, O’Dili Ike, Jason Blazer, Jason Combs, and Doran Linder who are already in the fight, and for Steve Johnson who will head to Afghanistan in a week. We must pray for their safety every day. We must pray for their wives and children (and hug them, call them, help them in any and every way). We must pray for our leaders, and the leaders of our enemies. We must pray for the civilian populations affected by war. We must pray for every daughter and son, every husband and wife, every mother and father wearing the uniform of our nation.
The second thing I want us to remember is that we are all at war, are all in spiritual battle every day. This reality is driven home by Paul in Ephesians 6.10-20, where he reminds us to be fully armored by God because our warfare is “not against flesh and blood, but against rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this present darkness….” (v.12). The war in which we are engaged is an offensive one, one in which we storm the gates of hell, and are assured we will prevail (Matthew 16.18). Victory is sure because Jesus has made it so (Ephesians 3.21). How can we, individually, share in that victory if we forget we are at war?
Another year, another day, another battle, another need to pray.
