Resolve

Each year the Christmas break brings a much needed opportunity for rest.  For me, as a teacher, this seems to be especially true.  The two weeks I have for vacation provide a time of recharge.  So as I return to work this week, I hopefully have found renewed vigor and readiness to face the challenges of the work that lies ahead.

While in years past I really haven’t been much of one to make New Year’s resolutions, I have found it to be helpful to find a sense of resolve for the year that is in front of me.  For some it may help to list their resolutions.  It’s funny, but in my work life I tend practically to live from various kinds of lists, such as “to do” lists and checklists.  However, I’ve never been much of one for New Year’s resolution lists.  Although I made a list last year, I only managed to keep up with one or two of the most important items on it.  No surprise that daily exercise didn’t make it far (unless you count running up the stairs at school a dozen times a day).

The resolve I plan this year is a little harder to define.  It comes from going through a spiritual journey—one that hasn’t yet given me a sense of its having been completed, and perhaps may not since spirituality is a journey that culminates in the final days of one’s life.  The resolve I have comes from a combination of everything that I experienced in the past year.  I suppose if I looked deeply enough at it I might find that it’s a culmination of my whole life up to this point.  In all of it I like to think that the Epiphany light will continue to shine and show the way.

The spiritual message that I feel is being given to me, in an elegantly simple way, is that I am to be a diligent worker—a coworker with God—this year.  At the start of this year I gather from my life, from my past and present, my deep-seated commitment to peacemaking and I feel that God is asking me to explore it more. 

In the past year my blog here only served to be a place to post monthly homilies.  Like so many other bloggers, whom I've seen come and go, I have almost let go of regular posting.  Of course you only need to look at my archives to see that this hasn’t always been the case.  It may be that this year I will make better use of this blog in exploring my spiritual commitments as well as perhaps sharing my struggles.

I know from my stats that I have a readership, though it may be small at times.   Nevertheless, I invite your comments and I invite you to follow whatever posts I put here this year.  I also invite your prayers as I attempt to express spirit and faith, as I attempt to share the difficulties and triumphs that are common to Christians living in the world today.  Perhaps more than anything, I’d like to share with you a better sense of my role as a deacon, that is, as I share my particular diakonia, my service.  Bear with me and pray for me as I resolve to be a coworker with Christ in all things.

Comments

[Lightborrower]

You have my prayers, and I'm glad to see you back to posting. "Elegantly simple" --I like that for describing how He works. It's very true.