THOUGHTS TO PONDER

I’m starting to feel paranoid.  For Christmas I was given a “Quote-A-Day” calendar block and this morning’s quote was ‘I’ve been on a diet for two weeks and all I’ve lost is two weeks.’ Two days ago it was ‘You have to stay in shape.  My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was 60.  Now she’s 97 and we haven’t a clue where she is.’ Since I began the New Year with a resolution to be fitter for my niece’s wedding in the summer I have great empathy with the feelings expressed! 

So, like most of the country (or at least those brave /foolish enough to go public about their intention) half-way into January I’m down!  I have done those things I ought not to have done, though they tasted pretty good at the time! Down, yes, but not yet to be counted out. The robotic lane swimming may yet win the cause....

There are, I think, two things I find myself wondering about in the arena of resolutions generally. One is to ask why they are almost inevitably bound to self-destruct, to implode? They’re often at least moderately rational, even with a fairly laudable intention.  They major on the power of the will.  But we fail to take account of the myriad internal and external pressures which will play havoc with the best of intentions.  Sure we affirm and admire grit, determination, self-discipline, but the danger of moralism lurks in the shadows, of graceless and joyless attempts to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps.  There's not a lot of Good News around that...

That’s my second point. We’ve celebrated together the wonder of the Christmas story, the breaking into human life of the divine.  And most recently Epiphany, with all its symbolism of candles and light, embedded in Robin Stewart’s lovely anthem.   Sometimes on the more traditional retreats people are invited in the closing gathering to - if they wish- define one resolution, something which they feel might be a helpful focus on their journey of faith in the days ahead.  But having spent much of the time in retreat becoming more aware of the all-embracing presence of God, any such resolution will be taken in the recognition of the enabling grace of God.

        We ask God to look not at the mess we make when we try to go it alone, but to look on us ‘as we are found in him’, sons and daughters who are being loved into becoming whole.  To live more often in the awareness of that isn’t a bad start to a new year...

Mary McMahon