Faith Matters - Resolutions
I never tell anyone the resolutions I make for the New Year. When I invariably break them, generally before Epiphany, it is easier on me if I am the only one to know of my weakness. Failure at an interior level is enough to bear without adding family and friends. Actually, I rarely make any resolutions at the dawn of the year any longer. I might think about how good it would be if only I could take in more of one thing and less of another. I understand the impetus to look ahead to a new and better me, as December becomes January. But resolutions, as far as I can tell, have never availed to make me a better person.
The problem I have found is that the kind of transformation I truly need and desire, inner change, is not amenable to resolutions, the obvious kind in any case. I say this from the experience of two-thirds of a century of trying to make it so. I resonate with St. Paul who laments that he can “will” what is right but that he cannot “do” it. The names of all those who nod in agreement with St. Paul are legion. If I cannot even balance my intake of protein, fat and carbohydrate, how can I ever imagine that I can make myself a “better” person, properly responding at the places where the road forks, discerning and doing truth in the face of moral ambiguity.
And yet, thank God, I am not the person I was. Looking back I can see that I have been changed over the years. I have a sense of going on, not necessarily to perfection, but to more compassionate responses to human need, greater patience with diversity, a clearer understanding of my own motives and desires, and a keener awareness of how I give myself permission to be selfish. Not any end point is in sight, but there is a desire to become a person of integrity, someone who wills one thing, one whose inner and outer selves are in harmony.
The changes have rarely been of my own making. I cannot say for sure how they have come, except to acknowledge that the Spirit has been about the silent work of reclamation. The people in the faith community that I trust, those I look to as models of Christian character, tell me something similar happens to them. We are being changed even though the specific awareness eludes us. Looking back I can see where I was, but I am not certain about how I got here.
But we are not only passive lumps of clay. We have played our role in the work as well. As far as I can tell, it has little to do with annual resolve or trying consciously to remodel our own interior landscape. I believe it has more to do with the focus of our attention, the use of our time and treasure, and responding to the call of our baptism.
We take our cue here once again from St. Paul who admonished the Philippians to think on things that are true, honorable, just, pure, pleasing, commendable, excellent, and worthy of praise. We do have an active role to play in the shaping of our character. We become, it seems, like that on which we focus our heart and mind. We become, it seems, like the people in whose presence we delight. Like healthy plants we grow in the direction of the light shining upon us.
I have become more and more discerning and discriminating in what contemporary culture I allow into my life. A number of years ago I decided to stop watching television. I had become progressively disenchanted with its seductive appeal to all of the worst in us: greed, lust, violence, revenge, narcissism, and voyeurism. For good reason it has been compared to an addictive drug. Author Neal Postman speaks of “amusing ourselves to death." What I allow into my life shapes me. For me television did not make St. Paul’s top ten list of recommendations for spiritual growth.
But television is not alone. So much of what our society offers us by ear and eye and heart and mind does not build up but chips away at the moral sensitivity and values to which we aspire. The folks behind what we see and hear and read give us what we want. We are complicit with them. But it is my responsibility, not theirs, to decide what I allow into my dreams, my daydreams and my nightmares. If I am not paying attention the culture will shape me its way.
Contemporary culture is not the enemy, just one tool of the enemy. The enemy is my own neglect of what is true, honorable, just, pure, pleasing, commendable, excellent and worthy of praise. These are moral categories more than aesthetic. “Think on these things,” pleads Paul. He holds out for the Philippians and for us a means to an end. We are being urged to look through the window and consider before we open the door. Not all who wish to accompany us are worthy companions. Not all I see, hear, and read will take me in the direction I want to go.
Day by day I am becoming more and more like the people, places and things that I invite to share my journey. Although I rarely make any New Year’s resolutions, there is a resolve within me, a restless yearning, a hunger for what is true, what is beautiful, and what is worthy of praise. I keep trying to make them my resolutions for every day.
God’s peace.
Chuck Johns