Goals for the New Year

Did you make any New Year’s resolutions? As we embark on 2023, it’s traditional for many people that they set some goals for themselves – things that they want to work on in the coming months. Whether we call them resolutions or goals or setting a personal agenda, I think it’s a worthy thing to do, so with your kind permission, I’d like to offer some thoughts on self-improvement for the coming year.

Practice Kindness. Did you see the news story the other day out of Buffalo, New York? During that region’s terrible Christmas winter storm, a mentally disabled 64-year-old man named Joey became disoriented and wandered out into the weather. He walked for miles, lost, and was just moments away from dying from hypothermia when a lady named Sha’Kyra heard him crying outside her home. She and her family – total strangers to this man, mind you – took him in and cared for him. She used a blow dryer to thaw out his clothes, which had frozen to his body. Sha’Kyra is a nurse, and she cared for Joey as best she could. His hands were so frozen that his rescuers literally had to cut away his gloves. She bathed him, cared for him, fed him, kept him warm and safe, and let him sleep until they were able to find his family, who had been frantically looking for him in the blizzard.

But the family couldn’t drive over there, because of the storm. Ambulances couldn’t get to them, and 911 was swamped, so Nurse Sha’Kyra and the man’s sister Yvonne used social media to organize neighbors, who in turn showed up – on Christmas Day! – with snowblowers and shovels to dig out their vehicles. Then Sha’Kyra and the neighbors transported Joey to the hospital. At last report, Joey is still in the hospital, recovering from fourth-degree frostbite. He may yet lose some fingers, but he’s alive, thanks to the kindness of one woman who was willing to go out of her way to help a stranger.

Granted, this is an extreme example, but I think the truth is inescapable: each of us can make a big difference in someone else’s life through a simple act of kindness. Whatever the situation, whatever the circumstances, let us be willing to be a Sha’Kyra to someone around us.

Give Others the Benefit of the Doubt. There’s probably a certain level of suspicion that is necessary – even healthy. But it seems to me that too many of us have become cynical in the extreme, unwilling to listen to anyone with a different point of view, and even doubting their goodness and basic humanity. There was a time in this country when we might disagree with others about their ideas or public policy, but we still respected them as people. But those days seem like a distant and unreachable memory. Now, when we disagree, we often feel the need to attack opponents personally, to call them evil and question their decency.

Certainly, we need to be able to debate and discuss many policy issues, but we should start by acknowledging that both sides want what is best for the country – they just have different ideas for how to accomplish that. Republicans, Democrats, Independents: everyone needs to quit playing political “gotcha” and work together for the common good.

I saw an excellent example of that just the other day at our own county commissioners meeting, as the incoming and outgoing commissioners calmly sat together before the meeting and discussed an issue relating to their precinct. No drama, no histrionics – just two good men, who both wanted what was best for the residents of that part of the county, and both doing their best to work for that. It made me proud of our local government – and a little bit sad that others in state and national government don’t show the same kind of unselfishness and good sense.

Learn Something New. It’s easy to fall into a rut – it’s much harder to try something different. I’m suggesting that it’s worth the effort to do just that. Read a new book. Learn to cook. Explore a new hobby. Plant a garden. Take up woodworking. Go for a walk. Be willing to explore the new and try the unfamiliar. Develop curiosity and put it into practice. When we challenge ourselves like that, it keeps our minds fresh and provides us with opportunities to make new friends and discover things we never knew.

Too many of us are too willing to settle for things as they are and always have been. Remember, there was a time when everything we enjoy was new to us, untried and unfamiliar. Let’s be willing to break out of our routines. Remember, if you want something you’ve never had, you have to be willing to try something you’ve never tried.

Happy New Year! Here’s to a blessed and safe 2023 for us all.

The Most Important Words

Proverbs 25:11 says, “A word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.” In other words, just as the right frame can beautifully add to a painting or photograph, so the right word at just the right time can make a big difference to someone who needs to hear it.

Additionally, James 3:9-10 reminds us, “With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be.” All of us can think of people in our lives who have had a big influence over us, who always seemed to be able to say just the right thing at the right time. We can also remember times when we have been wounded by the careless words of someone whose opinion mattered to us.

The old saying, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” is very mistaken. We need to remember that the words we use make a big difference to those who hear them – sometimes with the power to build up, but other times with a terrible power to hurt or tear down. And along those lines, remember St. Paul’s instructions to us from Romans 12: “Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.”

In the 1960s, there was a document being circulated and shared called “A Short Course in Human Relations,” author unknown. It was a list of what the writer considered the most important words and phrases that we can use in dealing with other people. At some point in the 1980s, it became a popular poster. After some consideration on this, here is my version of the list – suggestions for the most important words we can say to each other: 

• Please.
• I’m sorry.
• I love you.
• Thank you.
• Let me help.
• You can do it!
• I made a mistake.
• What do you think?
• You did a good job.
• I don’t know, but I’ll find out.
• We (As opposed to I, me, my or mine)

May we all be known as people who build up others with words of encouragement. God’s richest blessings on you and yours for a prosperous, safe, and happy 2022.

Changes, Changes

Someone has said that change is the only constant. Or as a character in a movie once said, “Nothing changes but the changes.”

The truth is, change is always with us. And most of us don’t like it. We get used to things being a certain way, and we want them to stay that way. Even when we don’t like something, if it’s familiar, we often prefer keeping it. “Better the devil you know,” we say.

But if life teaches us anything, it’s that everything changes. Parents grow old and die. Children grow up and leave. Neighbors come, neighbors go. Jobs end, and jobs begin.

It can be very depressing if we dwell on it with the wrong perspective. But it doesn’t have to be.

When change comes, we can either become angry and sullen about having our routine upset, or we can be thankful for the blessing we had and the time we had it. C.S. Lewis once pointed out that God gives us glimpses of heavenly joy, but only for a time. That way, we would understand the eternal joy that awaits, but we would never mistake this world for our true home. I don’t know if I agree completely with that or not, but it’s worth thinking about.

Another thing about change: every change is an opportunity for growth. It’s true, we like things the way we get used to them, but it’s also true that every familiar thing was once UN-familiar. I hated coffee the first time I tried it. Now I drink it every morning. Every best friend was once a stranger. Every golfer had to go through picking up a club and making that first ugly, awkward swing. The changes around us present us with a wonderful buffet of new opportunities, new experiences, possibilities for personal growth.

An old proverb says, “Be not the first to embrace the new, nor the last to forsake the old.” I think there’s some wisdom in there.

One other thing about change: the constant changes in this life and in this world, make our hearts yearn for the One who is the same yesterday, today, and forever, the One who does NOT change, the One whose love is always constant and whose compassions never fail. So I hold on to the unchanging Eternal One, and He gives me the strength and courage to face the changes I meet.

Bring it on.