January 3, 2024
Happy New Year! Hau’oli Makahiki Hou!
I know the time to make a New Year’s resolution is behind us. For that matter, I suspect that a number of people’s New Year’s resolutions haven’t lasted even these three days, so the timing doesn’t matter.
I don’t really want to invite you to a New Year’s resolution anyway. Those silent self-commitments rarely endure, do they? As admirable as the intentions behind them are, they do not survive the rigors of daily life. It’s a pity. I suspect we’d all be healthier, more equipped for joy, if we gave more energy to those resolutions than to the pressures we experience.
I do not ask you for a resolution, then. Just a… resolve. Over the last year we have seen the devastating results of unkindness, hatred, anger, selfishness, and pride. We’ve heard the tears of loved ones grieving for harsh words. We’ve seen the struggles of the poor trying to make ends meet. We’ve viewed the funerals of the victims of war, of several wars.
Let’s do what we can this year to reduce unkindness, hatred, anger, selfishness, and pride. Let’s do what we can to reduce them in ourselves, to bring compassion, caring, affection, open-heartedness, and humility to those around us. Let’s withhold rewards from those who continue to act spitefully, hatefully, angrily, selfishly, and pridefully. Let’s raise up those whose kindness, love, charity, generosity, and self-control we’ve seen.
If we do not succeed all the time next year, that’s not surprising. Human beings and perfection don’t mix that well. Human beings grow, however, and do things differently and better. Not in a once-made-quickly-broken resolution.
But with resolve.
In peace,
Pastor Eric
Photo by Eric Anderson.
