Column for Dec. 30

On my walk this morning, I saw a sign that begged folks to resolve to go to Sunday school every week in 2012. I was in the senior citizens wellness center , and people were there trying to get a head start on their promise to themselves of trying to work off some of the weight they gained during Christmas season.

Those two examples set me to thinking about resolutions for the New Year. I bet most of us resolve to try to clean up our diets, exercise more, and try to lose some weight. We may try to deal with a difficult habit that impedes our physical health. We do not seem as quick as to work on a virtue as we are to try to eliminate a vice. Our spiritual health certainly seems to take a decidedly second place behind our concern for physical health. (By the way, I need to explore at some point why I so consistently mistype spiritual when I am at a keyboard).

I was asked to officiate at a funeral this week. In my search for appropriate Scriptural material, I went back to the book of wisdom, Ecclesiastes. Some see it as a depressive work, as it consigns most of the things to which we aspire as being in vain, as meaningless, as futile. Actually, it looks at the big promises as futile dreams. Instead of looking for big answers to big questions, it commends keeping an eye on what is within our capacity. It commends working as fully as we can at whatever task is at hand, to enjoy our food and drink, to relish companionship, to dress as if we are going to a formal party.

One reason some of our resolutions for 2012 seem doomed to failure is that we try to take on too much in number or in size. Our wills are weak and prone to slip. Then we tend to beat ourselves up for our wills not being up to the goals we set before us. May I suggest that we lessen the chance of failure in resolve by limiting our resolutions a bit in the scope of their ambition? Let me further suggest that we do well to follow the advice of Ecclesiastes who has taken on the persona of Solomon in a “been there, done that” fashion. Instead of new deprivations, consider ways for you to enjoy your life more fully every day. I suggest to people who suffer with depression that they should have a list handy of ten easy to do things that give them pleasure as a way of short-circuiting the coming cloud.

I’m going to a conference in Indianapolis, the reformed roundtable, at the start of 2012. I have been assigned a book, Life in God, by the new president of Christian theological Seminary, Matthew Boulton. The thrust of the book is Calvin’s insistence that all of life is a training ground, a school, or our learning to live, not only with god but within the very life of God. For Calvin, our basic problem is blindness, being oblivious to the nature and work of God in everyday life. To cure this lack of spiritual sight, he commended Bible reading and regular worship. Both demonstrate God more clearly to us. I realize that both of these items may seem to contradict what I just said about finding things ot enjoy in life. To tell the truth, if they are viewed as duties, the contention would hold. If they are seen as practice toward advancing our spiritual well-being and happiness, as aids to a better life, then the objection loses force. If Christmas teaches us anything, it is that God holds body and soul together. We are of a piece, so what lifts one part of life affects the whole. May you have yes to see many blessings in 2012.