Since the sixteenth century, Japanese people have observed b\u014dnenkai, literally, \u201cforget the year gathering.\u201d These gatherings have recently included destruction of the previous year\u2019s calendars, as a symbolic way of moving on to the next year. There are other ingredients to their gatherings in which I\u2019d prefer not to participate, but I sure like the idea of forgetting some of the negative parts of 2020. Yes, there were good, God-given, things about 2020, but so many unpleasant things made it a year to forget. In fact, I\u2019m not sure we ought to be required to add it to our age, since much of the year was unused. So let\u2019s approach 2021 in agreement with the old Cherokee proverb, \u201cDon’t let yesterday use up too much of today.\u201d I love the quote by the late American Columnist, Bill Vaughan. \u201cAn optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.\u201d I seldom stay up until midnight anymore, but if I did it might be to be sure 2020 is gone, and to get a fresh start with 2021. The Apostle Paul lived and wrote several centuries before the Japanese celebrations of bonenkai began, but he had the idea in Philippines 3:13-14, \u201cforgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Since the sixteenth century, Japanese people have observed b\u014dnenkai, literally, \u201cforget the year gathering.\u201d These gatherings have recently included destruction of the previous year\u2019s calendars, as a symbolic way of moving on to the next year. There are other ingredients to their gatherings in which I\u2019d prefer not to participate, but I sure like the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monday-morning-manna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2859"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2859\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2860,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2859\/revisions\/2860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}