These days, New Year’s resolutions are controversial. I hear them dismissed as random, or unattainable. Some people say that making resolutions sets us up for failure. And yet…everyone asks about them! The idea of resolutions at the turning of the year is so interwoven in our expectations for what happens overnight between December 31 and the morning of January 1 that we typically default to the assumption that we should be making them (and that everyone else is doing so, as well).
As we think and pray about how to begin navigating 2024, I offer this poem by Lia Purpura that highlights the ambivalence associated with the day, titled (appropriately) Resolution:
There’s the thing I shouldn’t do
and yet, and now I have
the rest of the day to
make up for, not
undo, that can’t be done
but next time,
think more calmly,
breathe, say here’s a new
morning, morning,
morning,
(though why would that
work, it isn’t even
hidden, hear it in there,
more, more,
more?)
What is your take on new year’s resolutions? Do you make them? And how are they connected to your faith? In our discernment, we remember that every morning is new. God walks with us as this year begins, offering more than we can ask or imagine!
Blessings for 2024,
