So What Will You Do Differently?

As we are now into the first week of January of a new year, many resolutions have been made and I learned this week that in America, less than 10% of resolutions are kept; not a surprise.  We all make them whether we put words or energy to them don't we?  My wife and I were talking about this just this morning as we are encamped another day with our five grand kids in polar conditions so given that ambiance, my mind has begun to drill more deeply into the title question.

 

I am one that seems to reflect on history and also have this almost manic need to understand why things happen and why people do what people do be it good or not good.  I watched Dennis Rodman and his team of former NBA players in an interview with CNN this morning that turned contentious, rightly I believe, about being in North Korea. I was amazed to watch Rodman literally incapable of articulating with any clarity his thought and answer to a direct question.  Some will no doubt think or say I am being "racist" which has become a cop out term which is a default when someone does not agree with you, your skin color, your political leaning, etc.  

 

Someone posted on FB a couple of days ago, no doubt being sarcastic, about some of the commercials every thirty seconds during the football games of late about black only dating sites.  I saw the commercials and found myself with this strange crawling feeling about how our world has so changed. There is a Congressional Black Caucus; why is that?  There is the NAACP so I ask why not a NAAWP in our times of tolerance and equality?  As I grow another year older in March, I see my nation drawing farther and farther apart instead of embracing each other; so sad!  As I  write this with all five our my grandchildren hovering in front of the fireplace due to the cold, I look at my beautiful African grand daughter and see how happy she is with her family which is her brother and sister and two cousins and her Grammy and Poppy. We are family so I then question from the joy this child from Ethiopia has brought to our family, why can we as a nation find a footing of togetherness?

 

I am about to decide that politicians, pundits, lobbyists, media really do not wish a drawing toward each other in our society for in the division and divisiveness resides funding for causes and campaigns all at the expense of harmony and true peace.  I grew up in Alabama, saw the marches, watched the coverage of dogs and bombings in Birmingham, Selma, Mississippi, the Freedom Riders, the bus burnings, the Colored and White fountains and bathrooms, back door entrances for blacks to the same doctors and dentists white people got to go into through the front door and on and one.  I wish there was some way to erase all that but that will not happen I realize.  But to continue to throw gasoline of division in the twenty-first century using the hate and hurt of a generation ago just seems wrong to me.

 

In my own family in the three years we have had our African queen, Ms Hope, we have seen her bring smiles to tears, joy to hurts and warmth to anger time and time again. If one black African child can bring that to a family and to a wide band of families, why could that not be caused to happen in the macro population? Answer ... too many people do not want that to happen for residing at the core of division of political power, overflowing coffers for political gains that seek to foment the age old hatreds and shreds of division maintains the means of more and more anger.  Some will say I am a Southern boy that has lived in the North long enough to be "Yankeeized." for I have heard that and read that.  Perhaps true but fact is, I have found a way to truly embrace people with vast arrays of differences from me racially, ethnically, economically and spiritually.  When I read caustic or insinuative posts on FB that are hurtful to a person or to a race, it simply angers me and frustrates me for it is ignorance that resides at the core of such actions I believe.

 

So what will you do differently in the days ahead is not a rhetorical question but rather a fundamental probing of why we are granted yet another day on this earth.  For me I choose to be even more open to other opinions and seek to be less judgmental while at the same time seek to understand with more clarity what the Bible instructs us to be and to do.  Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth, BIBLE, is a great description of the Holy Bible.  I will close by restating the five step platform of my view of living a life today:

 

1. If you do what you have always done, you will get what you have always gotten
2. If you do not stand for something you will fall for anything
3. If you do not know where you are going, that is exactly where you will end up
4. Whatever you seek in this life, you will find
5. Stay in the fight!

So my new year resolution begins with seeking to be clearer on God's Word and direction for my life, yearning to be a better example for my grand children for they are watching and listening in a games of Monopoly, commercials, reactions to football games; every thing I do they are watching; WOW!  I want to use the talents God has granted me to His Glory only and find great joy in using that talent.  I want to find an even deeper joy of life and living.

 

I will close by challenging you to do what I challenged a large group of jail inmates to do last week ... take a piece of paper and write yourself a letter than nobody will ever see but you. In that letter, write your biography and in that letter list the five most important hopes for your life. Go ahead, try it!