New Year’s Resolutions

December 31, 2008

I use to attend a special New Year’s Eve church service every year when I was a kid. Beginning at 8:00 p.m. we had four hours of singing, sermons, and testimonies (hallelujah!) that concluded at midnight with the congregation on their knees praying in the new year. Dropping to your knees in church at midnight is a bit like the evangelical version of the dropping of the ball in Times Square only with less noise-makers and confetti. Four hours of church could be exhausting and as you can well imagine not all that spine-tingling. Forty years later and now if I’m still awake at midnight it’s only because the ringing of the new year happened to coincide with a post-bedtime excursion to the bathroom.

In the days of those four hour church-a-thons, a key element was the writing of New Year’s Resolutions. Once written they were sealed in a self-addressed stamped envelope that was then mailed to your home six months later so you could be reminded in your own handwriting of your unaccomplished promises to yourself. I grew weary of the annual mid-year ego smack-down so I stopped setting myself up with New Year’s Resolutions years ago.

Until now. I guess I’m becoming a bit of a mid-life risk-taker. Party on Anita.

So here they are; only a few in number but ambitious in scale.

1. I resolve to lose 50 pounds in 2009. Let’s not be vague here. I have a plan already in place. A radical plan. On January 7 I begin a 4-5 month medical-supervised liquid fast. Expect some very cranky posts over the next few weeks as I adjust to life without chewing.
2. I resolve that 2009 will be the year of “the book.” I have a box full of note cards, a head full of ideas and a heart full of desire. Now is the year to bring it all together.
3. I resolve to know the God of Jesus more intimately by directing all my Scripture reading, meditation, and study in 2009 on the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) exclusively, with the exception of occasional forays into the Psalms because there are days when a girl just needs a Psalm to carry her through. No Pentateuch, Prophets, or Paul. Just Jesus. All year long.
4. I resolve that in the coming year I’ll be more bold, passionate, and relentless in proclaiming the love and grace of God.
5. I resolve to clean the cat box everyday. Added at the urging of my beloved. Sigh.

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