Anniversaries

The word, anniversary, conjures up positive images to me, but that is not necessarily true for all anniversaries. On the positive side, one could cite wedding anniversaries with their celebrative party-like atmospheres. My church family just celebrated the 50^th anniversary of our church’s existence in Elko. Like many such celebrations, it was like a family reunion, which in essence, it was. A celebration of that many years as a presence in a community should also be a matter of praise to the Lord, as He is the one making such an event possible. That, actually, could also be true of a wedding anniversary of 50 years. For a couple to stay married for 50 years is definitely an act of God granting His grace for health and also His mercy in cementing a relationship for that amount of time.

There are other much less positive anniversaries—days to be marked, but not to be celebrated. Such days as Columbine and Sandy Hook, 9-11, and the Oklahoma City Federal Building, Pearl Harbor and the day JFK was assassinated. Those are days to be remembered because they are times we need to learn from, to somehow never allow to happen again.

And yet, all the people involved in the positive anniversary celebrations and all the people responsible for the heart-breaking anniversaries put their shoes on, one shoe at a time, put their slacks on, one leg at a time. Oh the misery we human beings can inflict on each other. And how deliriously happy we can bestow joy on another. It ultimately depends on choices made.

The wisest man, supposedly of all time, and I believe one of the most unhappy men of all time was Solomon. He very wisely asked God at the beginning of his reign to give him wisdom. He was granted that gift and amazed people of intelligence from all over the known world. But then he made some poor choices heedless of that wisdom and ended up writing the book of Ecclesiastes, declaring throughout most of it, “All is vanity—life is meaningless”  He discovered all the power and all the wealth in the world didn’t bring happiness—because he had already been granted those gifts. But at the end, God’s gift of wisdom led Solomon to the right choice: “Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.”

That choice would make all our anniversaries a celebration and none a day to mark with dread.