A Gathering Voices post by Lynne M. Baab
In these early days of 2012, are you thinking about the year that’s past? The year to come?
Last week I wrote about New Year’s resolutions, and I got a couple very interesting comments from friends. One friend said she doesn’t make New Year’s resolutions. Instead, she does an “examen” of the past year, asking questions like these: What blessings did we experience? What was I grateful for? What not-so-much?
Examen is an ancient prayer pattern which provides a structure to examine the ways we were aware of God’s presence during a specific time period (a day, a week, a year) and also the ways we felt God was present to us but we resisted that presence.
Most years I write a Christmas letter to send to family and friends. When I pondered my friend’s pattern of engaging in examen at the end of each year, I realized my Christmas letter functions that way for me. I usually start thinking about the letter in November, and I ask some of the same questions my friend asks. The letter doesn’t end up describing everything I’ve thought about, but the process of thinking about it and writing it helps me get a perspective on the year. And that’s valuable.
One year I didn’t get the letter written until well into January, and I think the lateness of the letter came from an absence of time in November and December for reflection. I remember that year I did a lot of reflection in early January. Here we are in early January again, and it’s simply not too late to spend some time pondering the blessings and challenges of 2011. Where was God present in your life in 2011?
Another friend responded to my column last week by saying that she doesn’t do resolutions. Instead, she said, “I try to pick a word that will set the tone for the year. This year the word is ‘notice.’ I am finding that through my days I need to notice the world around me more.”
I love that word. I am passionate about the need to spend more time and energy thanking God, and thanking the people around us, for the gifts we receive. (I wrote about thankfulness here.) In order to express our thanks, we have to pay attention to what’s going on around us. We have to notice.
As a result of my friend’s comments about choosing a word for each year, I’ve been thinking about what word I might choose for 2012. Perhaps something like “listen” or “follow.” I want to do a better job in 2012 of trying to listen for God’s voice to guide my decisions about how my spend my time and energy.
In several social settings in the past week, my husband and I have asked people if they’d like to come up with a word that summarizes their hopes and dreams for 2012. Our friends have chosen words like these:
- grateful
- health
- Emmanuel
- fun
- seek
- spontaneity
- work
- Word
We enjoyed hearing our friends describe the thoughts that lie behind these words. Because of those conversations, I’m going into 2012 with a sense of expectation and encouragement, looking forward to seeing where God is at work in the days and weeks to come.
