Or… This Is Not A List Of Resolutions

This year there are several goals that I would like to aspire too – things that have previously been part of the rhythm and balance of my life that I want to return to, as well as new things that I want to integrate into my being | doing | sharing life. In no particular order…

1. Restore the Lose Weight Discipline… haha, ok, so those who know the journey so far may scoff, but.. a trip to America and the summer celebration season has seen me stalling in second gear on this. I want to shake the last ten kilos by Easter, mostly for very prideful reasons.

2. Restore Thursday Night Dinners… before the Diet, I had a rhythm of life that was quite precious, and including weekly acts of hospitality… the best of which was Thursday Night Dinners, a weekly ritual of opening my home and cooking for others. A culinary and conversational challenge that often stirred great delight in my soul. I am a natural born nurturer I think.. I love to feed people’s bodies and souls, with sustenance and pleasure alike. It’s an act of worship, one that I’ve had to put aside over the last few months.

3. Restore Friday Night Sabbath… for every rhythm there is a natural ebb and flow. The flow-on from practiced extroversion and hospitality is a shutting of the doors in order to spend time at home, alone. These Friday Nights stemmed out of a sense of something missing the social activities I was involved with.. which in turn was really shown to be a sense of missing myself. Maybe not Friday Night Sabbath.. but Sabbath at least needs to return to my life this year.

4. Rebirth the Practice of Creativity in Art… I have barely painted in the last twelve months, a shocking absence especially considering that having sold the best of my work.. the walls of my home feel a little bare. I haven’t devoted the same amount of time to writing, songwriting, art or personal creativity as what I would like to… so it will be ‘rebirthed’ (not restored, for I am hoping for a fresh conception).

5. Take More Photographs of People I Love… I take photographs for work but I want to get back to capturing the moments of life wide open as I am living it. There are too many precious people whose faces, hands, eyes and posture I adore but keep sketched in my head. I want to capture these ones I love on film, through the eyes that find beauty there.

6. Read more History… of Humanity, of Judaism, of Church & Mission.

7. Read more Biography… of people that make a difference, that choose a different path, that find Life grasps them unexpectedly.

8. Read more Bible… I would like to steal Steve Taylor’s idea of Stoning the Prophets and start reading the Bible aloud with others, allowing spaces for reflection as well as exegesis.

9. Read more Letters… (this is your opportunity to participate.. go ahead and write me one).

10. Write more Letters… I wrote a couple of letters that I was exceptionally proud of in America, posted them off sealed with kisses and prayers. Unlike an email or a novel, you can’t keep carbon copies of letters so easily. You have to just write them as they come and then entrust the words you put down into the hand of the postman and the receiver. No endless editting, no cut and paste, no delete. The ink of indelible thought… precious and given as a gift.

11. Write more Books… I have 3 ideas that are already underway and if I don’t at least finish the first in time for November, I will be sorely disappointed.

Not resolutions… just very strong ideas.