As I was looking through my older photos of family members and friends who have passed on and some that look just a little older I couldn\u2019t help but think of the lyrics to the old Judds\u2019 song: \u201cGrandpa, tell me bout the good ole days.\u201d The Judds ask such questions as, \u201cDid families really bow their heads to pray?\u201d and \u201cwas a promise really something people kept, not just something they would say and then forget?\u201d In every generation there has been the concept of \u201cthe good ole days\u201d when times were easier and simpler. We each remember the better parts of the days of our youth and longingly wish that our kids could understand that time. I wish my kids knew what it was like before cell phones and tablets. My parents wished for me to understand life before the television. However, as I reflect about those \u201csimpler times\u201d I realize that the world I wanted them to understand had its scary moments too. I hated Russians and didn\u2019t even know why. I had never been personally done wrong by any Russians but I came along pretty soon after tire Cuban Missile Crisis and tire movie Rocky. Russians, in my mind, were the bad guys. My parents were raised to pinch and save \u2013 not just because it was harder to make a living but because their parents had lived through the Great Depression. I don\u2019t know about you, but Depression and Crisis don\u2019t seem to be synonyms for \u201cgood ole days.\u201d Here is where I bring math into the story in the form of an equation: If A is what happens to me and C is how my day or my life turns out, it is important to understand that A does not equal C. Rather I must insert B into the equation so it looks like this: A+B=C. So, what is B? The letter B stands for my interpretation and perception of said events. So it should look like this: What happens to me + (B) My perception of what happens to me = (C) My day, my life, etc. So maybe tire good ole days weren\u2019t actually all that good in every way. What we choose to remember and how we choose to perceive those days\u2019 results in our thoughts about them. There were good people in the Bible. There were plenty of wicked ones too. There were good people in the 3O\u2019s, 40\u2019s, 5O\u2019s, 60\u2019s, 70\u2019s, 80\u2019s, 90\u2019s, 00\u2019s, and 10\u2019s. There were some pretty wicked people during all those times as well. There were good times and there were bad times. Kids are resilient. We played like we were fighting the Russians as a way of dealing with our fears. Some people believe the song \u201cRing Around the Rosie\u201d started during the bubonic plague, while others believe the song existed be\u00adfore the plague. It is possible, however, that some lyrics may have been adapted by kids during the out\u00adbreak as they dealt with the reality of tire black death. The last line is \u201cwe all fall down\u201d meaning \u201cwe all die.\u201d Some kids have played \u201cCOVID\u201d at school as they run around tagging one another. We say, that\u2019s creepy and strange, but every generation has done it. And every’ generation comes out talking about “the good ole days.\u201d So here is the point: Where are the good ole days? They are right in front of you. Even amid tire sorrow and struggles of life. The good ole days are now. They are at the table with your family. They are in the yard with your kids. They are at the game with your friends. These are the good ole days of somebody. Why not let it be your good ole days?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is a song Brad Paisley released a few years ago called \u201cAlive Right Now.\u201d He talks about all the great things that our world offers to us today like Siri, social media, Ubers, and FaceTime for sol\u00addiers overseas. He says, \u201cIt\u2019s great to be alive right now, by the grace of God somehow. These might not be perfect times, but I\u2019m glad I\u2019m alive right now’.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As I was looking through my older photos of family members and friends who have passed on and some that look just a little older I couldn\u2019t help but think of the lyrics to the old Judds\u2019 song: \u201cGrandpa, tell me bout the good ole days.\u201d The Judds ask such questions as, \u201cDid families really… Continue reading The Good Old Days Can Be Right Now<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[178,179],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bulletin","category-marks-messages","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tannerchurchofchrist.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tannerchurchofchrist.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tannerchurchofchrist.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tannerchurchofchrist.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tannerchurchofchrist.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3232"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tannerchurchofchrist.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3241,"href":"https:\/\/tannerchurchofchrist.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3232\/revisions\/3241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tannerchurchofchrist.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tannerchurchofchrist.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tannerchurchofchrist.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}