Donna asked me last night, “Ever make resolutions?”
“Sometimes,” I said.
“How about you?”
“Not really, but maybe I should.”
This morning, the first day of a New Year, I’m wondering about resolutions … I haven’t made any, nor will I.
But, then, maybe I should.
Yet I think, we live in a culture that promotes dissatisfaction with just about everything.
Dissatisfaction empowers consumerism!
Buy the book, sign-up for the workshop, join the gym, and so forth. And next year, when little of nothing of this has worked, there’ll be more books, workshops and gyms. The pot of gold exists, doesn’t it, just over the horizon?
I’m all for reading, expanding our horizons, and even going to the gym, but I’m also for contentedness … an essential appreciation for life and its realities – for counting our blessings and taking the time to name them carefully and lovingly, and for making the best of things, because the best of things is inherent in the essence of life because God created the heavens and the earth and said, “Oh my, they’re good!”
Yes, reach higher and push harder, but put a leash on the manic pressures that turn these positive strivings into obsessive discontent and dissatisfaction, driving us to pluck the fruit from the tree and committing the “original sin” – “something is genuinely wrong with me, God blew it, and I’d better get it for myself, because no one else will help me.”
Appreciation, contentment – powerful, powerful, states of mind and heart.
You’re terrific, you’re wonderful, you’re good and kind. You’re all of this and more. You’re capable and bright; you’re wise and compassionate. You handle whatever comes your way, and you’ve got great friends and family standing around you.
And most of all, you belong to God!
A long time ago, God made a resolution: “I will never ever let them go.”
Now that’s a resolution we can live with!
Happy New Year!
