Resolutions....

Happy New Years Eve! 

May it include party hats, confetti, and noise makers! 

And don't forget the resolutions! 

Do you make them? 

Are they like this one?

 

 

I read today that 45% of us make resolutions while 38% refuse.

Also read that if you're in your 20's you have a 39% chance of success,

but for those of us over 50, our chances drop to a measly 14%.

What does that say?

So while the usual suspects top the list of the ten most popular resolutions

(i.e. weight loss, getting organized, and quitting smoking)

 I prefer these words from author Neil Gaiman's blog:

 

"I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things,

trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world.

You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something.

So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes.

Make glorious, amazing mistakes.

Make mistakes nobody's ever made before.

Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough,

or it isn't perfect, whatever it is:

art, or love, or work or family or life.  

Whatever it is you're scared of doing, Do it. 

Make your mistakes, next year and forever."

 

Happy New Year

I receive this email everyday from Inward/Outward: Church of the Savior....

and yesterday's’s is perfect in an “examen” sort of way:

Meaning, what were the consolations of your year? 

What were the desolations of your year?

I encourage each of us to set aside some time in the next couple of days

to ponder some (or all ) of these questions.

Share your thoughts with a friend. I am going to encourage my spiritual directees to do this too!


Year-ending, Year-beginning Elizabeth O'Connor Use New Year's Eve or New Year's Day as a time of reflection on the year gone and the year to come: What took place in your home relations? Your work relations? Your church relations? What events in the larger community of city, country and world most captured your attention?   Who were the significant people in your life? What books and art instructed your mind and heart?   Did you create anything this year? Did you make any new discoveries about yourself? How were you gift last year to a person, a community or an institution?   What was your greatest joy in this year gone? What was your greatest sorrow? What caused you the most disappointment? What caused you the most sadness?   In what areas of your life did you grow? Were these areas related to your joy or your pain?   What are your regrets? How would you do things differently, if you could live the year again? What did you learn?   Did you have a recurring dream? What theme or themes ran through your year?   Did you grow in your capacity to be a person in community--to bear your own burdens, to let others bear theirs? Did you have sufficient time apart with yourself?   Did you root your life more firmly in Scripture? Did you grow in your understanding of yourself? What was your most important insight? Did God seem near or far off?   How do you want to create the new year? What kind of commitment do you want to make to yourself? Your community? To the oppressed people of the world? How do the questions about commitment make you feel? Angry? Challenged? Hopeful?   Who are the people with whom you would like to deepen your relationships in the year to come? Do you have relationships that need to be healed? What can you do to heal your own heart? What can others do to assist in your healing?   Is there a special piece of inward work that you would like to accomplish? Is there a special outward work? What are the goals that seem important to you? What are your hopes? What are your fears? What are the immediate first steps that you can take toward the goals that seem important to you?   We might have a time of prayer in which to give thanks for all the events of the year gone, and to ask that the God through whose fingers they were filtered will continue to bless them to our use. They are now the bread of our life--part of all that we have to share with another when we share what is ours to give away. loan payday online 4 web 6payday 41 loan linkloans only 1 arm 5 interestcash loan 5 advance illinois5 loan consolidators best studentloan equity home 5.5loan fax no guaranteed 500with loan 9 payday no 6 Map Source: Letters to Scattered Pilgrims Add your thoughts at inward/outward This message is a daily service of inward/outward. Was this message forwarded to you? Click here to sign up.

Crossing the Threshold of 2010

"Many times today I will cross over a threshold.

I hope I will catch a few of those times.

I need to remember that my life is, in fact,

a continuous series of thresholds:

from one moment to the next,

from one thought to the next,

from one action to the next.

Help me appreciate how awesome this is.

How many are the chances to be really alive . . .

to be aware of the enormous dimension

we live within.

On the threshold the entire past

and the endless future

rush to meet one another.

They take hold of each other and laugh.

They are so happy to discover themselves

in the awareness of a human creature.

On the threshold the present breaks all boundaries.

It is a convergence,

a fellowship with all time and space.

We find You there.

And we are found by You there.

Help me cross into the present moment -

into wonder, into Your grace:

that "now-place," where we all are,

unfolding as Your life moment by moment.

Let me live on the threshold as threshold."

written by Gunilla Norris from Being Home p. 14-15

And so tonight we shall cross over the threshold of 2010 into 2011.

May we gather up all that we have experienced of God's love & light this year

and bring it with us into this new year, to give away to everyone we meet.

New Year's Eve

What do people do on New Year's Eve? Well, here are today's thoughts from the "Writer's Almanac" ...
"In Mexico, people eat one grape with each of the 12 clock chimes at midnight, and make a wish for the coming year.
In Venezuela, they wear yellow underwear for a year of good luck.
In Japan, people eat soba because long thin noodles symbolize longevity, and at midnight, temple bells ring 108 times, matching the 108 attachments in the mind that need to be purified before the New Year.
At midnight in Greece, families cut a cake called a vasilopita, which has a coin baked inside; whoever gets the coin will have a lucky year.
In this country, the most famous celebration is in New York City's Times Square, where up to one million people gather each New Year's Eve to watch a ball drop."

and this photo is the 1907 Times Square Ball!

In Pasadena, California where I grew up, the night was spent sleeping on Colorado Blvd., waiting for the following day's Tournament of Roses Parade - most of which I slept though because the Blvd. was definitely party central all night long!

So, what happens in your corner of the world on this last night of 2008?