You know you’re getting old when you look at something old and think, “Ah! There’s something familiar.” I feel that way every time I look at a beautiful (or sturdy, or functional, or plain) old building, or something made of real wood and metal and stone, or a cloth-bound book, or anything which stands out as having what can now only be described as “character.” It’s funny, but back when I was a child I didn’t always like new things, either. I loved the look and feel of old things. But even the new things have become old.

“And no one, after drinking old wine, wants new, because he says, ‘The old is better.’ ”

Christian Standard Bible (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2020), Lk 5:39.”

I have found that the only way to regain some sort of semblance of the kind of world in which I once lived, is to keep sojourning until I find the old people who feel the same as I do. I’m lucky that there are more and more every day, and I’m sure that we will all come to the same place, and, now that the new things are old, we can make the old things new again. The new old, remade in our image, one which represents something more than just the endless greed of merchants who have no part with us. That’s why I must go full Circle again, leave my home country of Texas, and go back to my people, as they are innocently ignorant of the disaster they are inviting into their homes with every novelty. My own past is a foreign country, and I don’t want to see them lose their future. My ministry moves as the Spirit directs, and He has spoken quite clearly in this last year. So wish me luck, God willing I’ll be in a better place soon, somewhere where the new is built with the old in mind, and both coexist peacefully.