A few weeks ago, my daughter's Webelos troop set up to do Christmas caroling at a nearby nursing home. Now it's one thing to say that you're going to do caroling and another to actually do it. As it happens - I am not trying to boast or brag here, everyone there will agree with me - I was the only voice in a group of about twenty to thirty people who was strong, on key (no instruments), and could hold the melody well enough for the others to latch on. A week afterwards, there was another Christmas caroling event, this one with several good singers. One participant brought a violin, another brought a cello, and one had a few recorders with him and was using his alto. I asked permission to use his soprano, sat down to share music with the cellist, and started adding to the accompaniment.
I enjoy reading classics in literature from the time periods before we had computers, television, or even radio. The upper-class people, both men and women, in those times were practically required to learn a few skills that would make social gatherings more enjoyable and entertain their families in the evening. They memorized poems (or learned to read them dramatically from books), learned to play the piano, and practiced singing. The goal was to be able to make yourself pleasant in any gathering, expected and unexpected.
Many people think about skills in the New Year. January is, according to some calendars that gather names for every day of the year, "Hobby Month". Resolutions often take the forms of new skills to learn. If you ask them why they're learning these skills, they'll usually have a reason for it. They want to eat more healthy. They want to knit hats for babies and socks for people in third world countries. They want to know how to build a shed to save the cost of always paying someone else to bring their ideas to life. In many cases, people learn skills more readily and more easily when the stakes are higher. People who worry about the collapse of civilization, for instance, will learn gardening, first aid, mechanical work, and other skills that are less useful for the average person in this society than in the one they are preparing for.
In fact, that makes for an interesting mental exercise. Suppose civilization as you knew it collapsed, and you made your shaken way from the rubble of your neighborhood to a small settlement made up of survivors trying to rebuild. You entered, and the settlement leader asked you, "What can you do to make yourself useful?" Now you might be a highly-paid administrator of some sort, having come from a city where you made more than enough money to eat out every night and see every Broadway show. What useful skills are you going to bring into this new life of yours? If you were paying attention during the shows and have some theatrical skill, you could organize a troop to practice twice a week in the evenings and lighten the heart of your fellow settlers. Maybe you regularly fixed up your own beater of a bicycle thirty years ago in childhood, and you can make some repairs if you have the tools. Maybe you learned how to use a drop spindle at a county fair once and you think you still remember how to do it. Maybe all you can do is to say, "Well, I have good legs and a strong back, and I'm willing to pitch in and learn."
The Bible has an interesting bit in it, in 1 Corinthians 3. The Apostle Paul writes about building a work on a foundation that is tested by fire. If what you built lasts, he says, you will have a reward. If it is all consumed, you will still be saved, but as one who is escaping the fire. The Bible talks about rewards in Heaven and the New Earth in other areas as well, and I've heard some very odd conjectures about what those rewards will be. Some Sunday School classes in my youth presented the notion that you will receive a jewel in your crown for each person you lead to Christ, and you want many jewels in your crown, don't you? I reject that interpretation. We are responsible for living Christ and preaching Christ; we are not the ones who "save" people, and we cannot control their decision. So what is it talking about? I have a conjecture that I believe is supported by Scripture.
Think back to the question of what you would bring to a post-apocalyptic settlement. If you were as sure as some people that civilization was going to collapse, you would spend your time now learning how to plant and garden, how to forage for wild harvests, how to sew without a machine, how to cook without a stove. Well, if you are a Christian, you can be sure that you are going to die, that the old Heaven and Earth will perish, and that you will be given a new body and a new Earth without sin. Through prophesies about "the lion and the lamb" and "grass" as well as others, we can guess that the new Earth is not going to be totally alien to us. So maybe in this new year, you might ask yourself this: What kind of skills can you learn now, that will be of use to you in this new place?
"How To Get A Big Promotion And Drive A Lexus By Stomping On The Little People" will likely do you no good at all. How to play a video game will mean nothing in a world with no video games. Planting and reaping may be of use, though gardening is likely to be much easier in a world without weeds and thorns, which are clearly stated to be part of the curse of sin. How about "The practiced and ready desire to help others without looking for a reward"? How would that skill do in a world where the reward is going to happen? (It's never a sure thing in this world.) Perhaps "Being humbly willing to learn from people who have figured out a new skill before you have"? How about "Developing the discipline and willpower to finish what you start even when your brain and body are working as hard as they can against you"? Like exercising against tension, that skill is going to explode into brilliance once your brain and body are cooperating properly.
In this new year, I'd like to encourage you to think about what skills and works you might develop for the life that we know will last. Since I can sing in this world, I can bring entertainment to groups of people without television, cell phones, or radio. Since I can sew in this world, I have been able to customize garments to myself and other people - as part of my ministry, I once charged materials-only to make special skirts for a wheelchair-bound woman. In times past, being an "accomplished person" was part of being in proper society. How can you be an "accomplished person" when we start to roam the New Earth together?
