New Year Resolutions

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For Christmas Zach bought me a notebook. A 3″ x 5″–All-Weather Memo Book–vivid in sunflower yellow. With it a Pentel Pencil (with requisite #9 lead).

“Dad,” he tells me. “Carry this notebook with you. It’s for when you have ideas that come to you for your new book.”

It so happens, some ideas came my way today. I was talking with a friend whose family gets tied up into knots over the Christmas season. The stress, the hectic, the in-laws, the need to please, the strain of it all. So I decided on a couple more New Year Resolutions. (And yes, they were written with my new #9 pencil, in my All-Weather Memo Book, and transcribed to this blog.)

1. Be gentle with yourself. Don’t pay attention to the consumer myth that tells you that there is something else to be added to your life before you are okay.

2. Savor the day. This day. Knowing that savoring is not about addition. It may be about subtraction. It may mean removing the armor I wear to keep from letting life in. When I do remove the armor, even for a moment, there is an extraordinary liberty I find in paying attention.

3. To help the process, ask yourself this question every day, “What did I notice today that surprised me?”

4. To help yourself remember what surprised you, buy a reliable pencil, and a notebook that will let your mind wander and celebrate and take delight.

Call it transcendent or call is spectral or call it holy; it is the same. You don’t have to be Catholic or Christian or even particularly religious to understand it. You don’t have to understand it. You recognize early on, that your understanding is not what is needed. The willingness to embrace this humility is what becomes our petition. Our prayer.