The Eighth Day of Christmas 2021

New Year's Day

Welcome to 2022.  An opportunity to start a new chapter, a new story, a new verse.  

It seems we are all in want of that lately.  We want to shake off 2021 and all it brought and move back into brighter times.  There's no reason a new start should limited to today alone, but the day and the occasion does make for a good transition.

In this season of resolutions, I pray you make them and work towards them.  If nothing else, to try something new and different.  Something you've always wanted to do.  Be bold.  Be daring.  Shoot for the moon.  Be wild and ambitious.  But most of all be kind.  If it's one thing I've observed and wished for my life, it is that we need more kindness in the world, especially now.  Pure, unadulterated kindness.  To view the whole world as our neighborhood.  I hope to be a part of that change.

"Come, gentlemen, I hope we shall drink down all unkindness."  William Shakespeare

If we should keep anything of 2021, it should be a reminder that human connection is absolutely necessary.  We've seen how our time with our immediate families could be strengthened through time together.  We've longed for the ability to connect with friends, with family, with others around us that we've missed through these months.  We recognize that kindness, that friendship is a warmth shared between us.  

In year's past, I've shared a poem with thoughts and hopes for the new year ahead.  This year is no different, and the poem shared is a new one of hope from America's young poet laureate, Amanda Gorman.

“New Day’s Lyric”

May this be the day
We come together.
Mourning, we come to mend,
Withered, we come to weather,
Torn, we come to tend,
Battered, we come to better.
Tethered by this year of yearning,
We are learning
That though we weren’t ready for this,
We have been readied by it.
We steadily vow that no matter
How we are weighed down,
We must always pave a way forward.

This hope is our door, our portal.
Even if we never get back to normal,
Someday we can venture beyond it,
To leave the known and take the first steps.
So let us not return to what was normal,
But reach toward what is next.

What was cursed, we will cure.
What was plagued, we will prove pure.
Where we tend to argue, we will try to agree,
Those fortunes we forswore, now the future we foresee,
Where we weren’t aware, we’re now awake;
Those moments we missed
Are now these moments we make,
The moments we meet,
And our hearts, once all together beaten,
Now all together beat.

Come, look up with kindness yet,
For even solace can be sourced from sorrow.
We remember, not just for the sake of yesterday,
But to take on tomorrow.

We heed this old spirit,
In a new day’s lyric,
In our hearts, we hear it:
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne.
Be bold, sang Time this year,
Be bold, sang Time,
For when you honor yesterday,
Tomorrow ye will find.
Know what we’ve fought
Need not be forgot nor for none.
It defines us, binds us as one,
Come over, join this day just begun.
For wherever we come together,
We will forever overcome.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot...

We'll drink a cup of kindness yet, for auld lang syne.

Happy New Year!  To 2022!

The Eighth Day of Christmas

New Year's Day

Welcome to 2021.  An opportunity to start a new chapter, a new story, a new verse.  

It seems we are all in want of that lately.  We want to shake off 2020 and all it brought and move back into brighter times.  There's no reason a new start should limited to today alone, but the day and the occasion does make for a good transition.

In this season of resolutions, I pray you make them and work towards them.  If nothing else, to try something new and different.  Something you've always wanted to do.  Be bold.  Be daring.  Shoot for the moon.  Be wild and ambitious.  But most of all be kind.  If it's one thing I've observed and wished for my life, it is that we need more kindness in the world, especially now.  Pure, unadulterated kindness.  To view the whole world as our neighborhood.  I hope to be a part of that change.

"Come, gentlemen, I hope we shall drink down all unkindness."  William Shakespeare

If we should keep anything of 2020, it should be a reminder that human connection is absolutely necessary.  We've seen how our time with our immediate families could be strengthened through time together.  We've longed for the ability to connect with friends, with family, with others around us that we've missed through these months.  We recognize that kindness, that friendship is a warmth shared between us.  

In year's past, I've shared my favorite New Year's posts from one of my favorite authors, Neil Gaiman.  Last year, he shared a poem, that started by asking what people on Twitter thought of when they heard the word "warmth."  The following is the poem he wrote from the collection of their responses.

When You Need to be Warm.

"A baked potato of a winter's night to wrap your 

hands around or burn your mouth.

A blanket knitted by your mother's cunning fingers. Or your 

grandmother's.

A smile, a touch, trust, as you walk in from the snow 

or return to it, the tips of your ears pricked pink and frozen.

The tink tink tink of iron radiators waking in an old house.

To surface from dreams in a bed, burrowed beneath 

blankets and comforters,

the change of state from cold to warm is all that matters,

and you think

just one more minute snuggled here before you face the

chill.  Just one.

Places we slept as children: they warm us in the memory

We travel to an inside from the outside.  To the orange

flames of the fireplace

or the wood burning in the stove.  Breath-ice on the inside 

of windows,

to be scratched off with a fingernail, melted with a whole 

hand.

Frost on the ground that stays in the shadows, waiting for

us.

Wear a scarf.  Wear a coat.  Wear a sweater.  Wear socks.  Wear

thick gloves.

An infant as she sleeps between us.  A tumble of dogs,

a kindle of cats and kittens.  Come inside.  You're safe now.

A kettle boiling at the stove. Your family or friends are

there.  They smile.

Cocoa or chocolate, tea or coffee, soup or toddy, what you

know you need.

A heat exchange, they give it to you, you take the mug

and start to thaw.  While outside, for some of us, the

journey began.

as we walked away from our grandparents' houses

away from the places we knew as children: changes of 

state and state and state,

to stumble across a stony desert, or to brave the deep

waters,

while food and friends, home, a bed, even a blanket

become just memories.

Sometimes it only takes a stranger, in a dark place,

to hold out a badly-knitted scarf, to offer a kind word, to

say

we have the right to be here, to make us warm in the

coldest season.

You have the right to be here."

Should auld acquaintance be forgot...

We'll drink a cup of kindness yet, for auld lang syne.

Happy New Year!  To 2021!

Big Question #1: Do my New Year's resolutions benefit only me?

Do your New Years resolutions only benefit you?

— Jon Jorgenson (@jonjorgenson) December 31, 2019

This is a question that has been resonating with me since I saw it on Twitter.  Do my New Year's resolutions benefit only me?

If you are the type of person that makes resolutions, they generally fall into the self-improvement category.  New Year, new you and all that.  And I'm as guilty as the next person.  This will be the year I lose that twenty pounds, that I finally get out of debt completely, that I read more, that I devote more time to study of the Bible, and so on, and so on.

I published the list of them last year.  And generally they all benefit me, or my family, again directly affecting me.

How often have I used this practice to benefit myself, and not to be a better part of society?

And when you think of it, isn't that really backwards?  If we focused our resolutions on being more generous, more kind, more helpful, more supportive - wouldn't self-improvement be a natural bi-product?  Wouldn't we all be better people in general?

It's not that self-improvement is bad in and of itself.  Growth, change, development are all good things.  But there must also be a point in which we move beyond self.  I look at my list and everything is focused on self-improvement.  My goals are all about me.  Why is that?  Wouldn't we be better served by not focusing just on the betterment of ourself and turning our attention to the betterment of the world around us?

The question then is, what would such a resolution look like?

I think, like any others, these kind of resolutions should also be SMART.

Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Relevant
Time Bound

Good goals, good resolutions are first specific.  They move beyond generic and become something definable.  "Be generous" is a very generic resolution - one which is easily ignored and easily claimed to have been achieved.  After all, giving a dime to just one person on one day at one time over the course of an entire year would technically achieve this goal, though I doubt it is what the person intended.  A specific way to be kinder would be better.  It's a place to answer all the questions about the end result you want.  Exactly what you want to accomplish.  Why it is important.  "I pledge to work at the local food bank this year" while not perfect, is a step toward this goal.

The goal must also be measurable for the same reason.  That way you can chart progress and can tell when a goal is achieved easily.  This is part of being able to keep yourself motivated.  For that reason, "I pledge to volunteer at the local food bank once a month" is a much better version of the goal above.

For obvious reasons, the goal must be achievable.  This is where it pays to be reasonable.  It's better to have a goal to volunteer once a month than every day, if you are more likely to actually keep the goal of once a month, as opposed to giving up on it.   You can think of this as the reality check on your goals.

A good goal must also be relevant, it must matter to you.  This seems intuitive, but you would be surprised the number of people who keep working towards goals only because they think they are supposed to.  Because they know other people value it.  Answering questions like, is this worthwhile, does it matter, goes a long way to addressing this issue.  If saving the environment is a great passion for you, it may make more sense for your resolutions to involve greater commitment and involvement in cleaning roads, rivers, lakes, etc. or raising awareness about climate change, than volunteering at the food bank.  Both are worthy causes, but you are more likely to stick to the one where your passion lies.

Finally, the goal must have a time component.  There needs to be a sense of urgency.  It's hardwired into us.  We are much more likely to address a pressing need and procrastinate one with a nebulous or lengthy timeline.  If you are wanting to volunteer at a food bank, perhaps start with seeing what their greatest need is.  It might not be helping with the distribution on a monthly basis, but helping with an upcoming drive the next week instead.

There are several goals and resolutions that could help meet these.

To give away an extra $100 a month to a worthy cause
To give away X% of my income this year
To volunteer weekly, monthly at a local food bank, pet shelter, homeless shelter, with X group

It's an election year, so there is an opportunity to help volunteer with a campaign for a candidate that you feel really could help change things.

A resolution to actively study the candidates and vote as an informed voter would be a great one.

It's also a census year.  Perhaps a good resolution for civics is to apply to work with the census.  Or to be helpful and respectful of the census workers when they come.

I'm still working through my list.  Resolutions aren't things that need to be limited to the first of the year only.  They are things we should be continually committed to.  So, I'll continue to fine tune my list, taking a hard look at how many are just for self-improvement and to where I should be resolving to better the world around me.

What about you?  What does your list look like?  And how balanced are your resolutions?

Resolved

It's that time of year, when everyone is making New Year's resolutions.   A plan for changes and improvements in the new year.  And while I'm not one who usually makes resolutions, I thought I would try my hat at a few.  A few are necessary, a few are hopeful.  All in all, good changes to live by.

• Keep getting away just Jamie and me annually - I love this tradition and will work to make sure that this continues to happen.  A weekend getaway to either a favorite destination or a new location for one or both of us.  With our wanderlust, we will keep this alive.
• Read a book monthly - At least.  With the kids, I don't get to read as much for entertainment as I would like, but I want to shoot for at least a book a month.
• Meal prep weekly - If I want to improve how I eat, I'm going to have to meal prep for my lunches.  My greatest challenge comes down to a lack of planning, so I'm going to have to be on top of it.
• Run two-three times a week - I had started running a year ago and need to pick it back up.  My goal is to be able to get through a 5K jogging and not be caught by the people sweepers at the end.
• Write daily - I have been able to keep the blog going basically daily through pre-planning a lot of posts.  My goal now is to make sure to write something each day, just to further refine the skill.
• Stand hourly - I sit far too long, in the car, at my desk, and at home.  I need to make a point to stand more, particularly with the standing desk.  So the goal is to make a point to stand at least once an hour for an extended period of time.
• Be thankful always - This is the toughest of them all.  To keep a mindset of thankfulness.  To remember how much I have to be thankful for in all situations.  To remember how much we have been blessed by our Creator and to be demonstrative of that thankfulness.

Hopefully, this list will be one that I can stick to, and have others prodding me along.  Did you make New Year's resolutions?  If so, what's on your list?