One Hundred and One

yikes! Not only is it my week to write, it's my month to pick a topic!

The first of a new month always creeps up on me and catches me unawares, especially when the new month starts on a Sunday! Sunday is that strange day: last day of the weekend and first day of the calendar week. My birthday is on the first day of a certain month, so I feel for the firsts because they are often forgotten about until they hit you in the face as you flip the calendar. I thought I saw this one coming, since I've been longing for its arrival to herald in a renewed grocery budget with which to restock the pantry and freezer. So there I was, smugly ready to turn the computer off and head to bed when it hit me: tomorrow is May first, May Day! My month to choose. My week to write. And we have a church conference all weekend long, so I better get this done so everyone else can get their wheels turning! This weekend has been crazy with errands, a funeral/life celebration, conference, and even baby showers that I will sadly have to miss. Don't you always find that May has 101 directions to pull you in? gardening, spring cleaning, school finishing, outdoor playing, yard working, graduation/baby/wedding showering... It is one busy month! 101 things to do...

Did you know that the Old English name for the month of May meant "month of 3 milkings" and that abundance is in part why there are May Day celebrations? Well, thanks to wikipedia, now you and I both can impress others with that gem. In more recent European history, May Day commemorates the socialist movement and uprisings, and is sometimes referred to as Labour Day. The town that I lived in in the Czech Republic had a square named "Prvni Maj", or May Day, and in the middle was a concrete platform on which a bronze statue of Lenin used to stand. He had since been pulled down and that platform was instead being used for skateboarding by rebellious teens dabbling in Western culture. 101 tidbits of pretty useless, but interesting, information...

Mainly I chose "101" because I like to use things in multiple different ways, and thought it would be fun to share some of those ideas, and even more fun to hear everyone else's ideas and add their tricks to my back-pocket. But today is the first. And although, as I said before, Sunday firsts especially sneak up on me, I especially love them because they remind me of what my priority for ordering my days needs to be: He comes first. His Name, which is above every name. His praise, glory, honor. His will. His Word. His commandments. His testimony. His people. His calling. As I think about the busyness that is May, with all its directions, distractions, obligations, and social occasions, I have been greatly challenged by the appropriate applicability of the following psalm:

Psalm 101 (NASV)

A Psalm of David.

¹I will sing of lovingkindness and justice,
To You, O LORD, I will sing praises.
²I will give heed to the blameless way
When will You come to me?
I will walk within my house in the integrity of my heart.
³I will set no worthless thing before my eyes;
I hate the work of those who fall away;
It shall not fasten its grip on me.
⁴A perverse heart shall depart from me;
I will know no evil.
⁵Whoever secretly slanders his neighbor, him I will destroy;
No one who has a haughty look and an arrogant heart will I endure.
⁶My eyes shall be upon the faithful of the land, that they may dwell with me;
He who walks in a blameless way is the one who will minister to me.
⁷He who practices deceit shall not dwell within my house;
He who speaks falsehood shall not maintain his position before me.
⁸Every morning I will destroy all the wicked of the land,
So as to cut off from the city of the LORD all those who do iniquity.

101 things to praise Him for, 101 things I need Him for, 101 things to keep me on my knees...