Why should I make any New
Year's Resolutions? I never keep them.
Almost all of us have had the experience of wanting
to begin a new year resolving to improve, to do some things better than
we have before. It is natural to have hope, to want to believe we aren't
stuck in the ways we currently behave, and yet, all of us have the experience
that we haven't done too well with our past resolutions. In fact, at
this time of the year, the newspaper cartoons almost always point out
the humorous side of our trying to make resolutions that don't seem
to have a chance of succeeding.
Why do our resolutions
so often fail?
So often our good intentions fail and fail quickly. There are many
reasons, of course, and some of them relate to how realistic our resolving
is, but sometimes, we resolve to end addictive behavior without really
giving it a chance. Most of the time, most of our resolutions are our
best attempts at just having stronger will power. Though there are outstanding
examples of heroic virtue, and some people really do quit addictive
behavior "cold turkey," there are far too many examples of
failure.
One instinct deep in Ignatian Spirituality is the sense that, while
it is good to develop stronger will power and self-control, real change
in our lives actually happens most reliably when it comes from our deepest
desires. Ignatius knew, from his own experience, just as we often discover
in therapy, in spiritual direction, upon reflection on our own experience,
that we usually do what we want to do. We rarely do what we don't want
to do. The secret to change is to reform our desires - discovering what
our deepest desires are and trying to change or re-form them. This was
no self-help process for Ignatius and many of the Saints. It was the
process of getting to know Jesus and falling in love with him. Once
we fall in love with someone, all our desiring changes.
Don't I already know
Jesus? Don't I already have a relationship with him?
Often this sounds too simple to us. Don't I already
know Jesus? Haven't I already fallen in love with him? Of course, hearing
the invitation at the beginning of this new year to examine our relationships
with Jesus and let them be renewed this upcoming year, begins with
the freedom to acknowledge that there is room for growth here. And,
it starts with something of an attraction, a small desire, even a bit
of curiosity that wonders, "What more can I discover? How might
my heart be more captured by Jesus?"
Love
always directs our hearts. But, there are other spirits, too. At times
we discover the sad reality that falling out of love changes our hearts
dramatically, too. Once we lose that affection, that attraction, that
draw, then trouble begins. Whereas before we experienced a wonderful
energy that wants to spend as much time as we can with someone we love,
and wants to do anything we can for the one we love, now we experience
a coolness, an emptiness, a distance, and unfortunately, at times, the
other starts to annoy us. Sometimes we say, "it just happened,"
but upon reflection, we realize sadly that there was sin involved. We
made some bad choices, some selfish choices. We stopped contributing
to the relationship. What isn't growing is usually dying. And, of course,
sin is contagious and we live in a culture that doesn't support self-less
loving. There are the messages: What about me? What about my needs?
We tend to keep score. There are bad spirits among us that seem determined
to make loving difficult, that seem to prevent wounds from healing,
that seem to promote division, highlight differences and ultimately
lead to war. This whole pattern, which we have understood as
"Original Sin," has described for us what we is overcome by
Jesus' coming, and by his life, death, resurrection and gift of the
Spirit. Jesus destroyed sin and death's power over us. Re-connecting
with him this new year is re-connecting with his power to free our hearts
to love again.
How do we get to
know and fall in love with Jesus?
Getting
to get to know Jesus in a new way, at a deeper level is just like getting
to know anyone. We begin by spending more time with a person. We pay
attention to him/her. We get to know the story of that person more completely. Eventually,
we become more and more curious and more and more fascinated by how
the person acts, what motivates that person, how he or she thinks. Of
course, the key here is not only to learn more about Jesus, but to come
to really know him, to experience a relationship. It is easy to imagine
that Jesus knows me. It is more difficult to imagine that I am in a
relationship with Jesus, and we know each other and there is something
special about this relationship. For example, some of us will get to
know Jesus and become really fascinated by his mother and father and
that will shape our sense of who he is and our relationship with him.
Some of us will come to love the way he chooses and interacts with his
disciples. Many of us will learn a great deal about Jesus from how he
tells stories and reveals things about God and about the Kingdom of
God. Still others of us will become engaged by how Jesus interacts with
and heals sinners and sick people. Perhaps we will identify with this
or that story which will characterize our particular relationship with
him.
What about my resolutions?
While
we are getting to get to know the Lord, the things we may have been tempted
to resolve begin to change. We may still need to lose weight and exercise
more, but what will inevitably rise to the surface are patterns that
are like his. Attraction so naturally leads to imitation. Jesus is our friend, a wonderful Lord with a powerful way of loving
and surrendering his life to the plan of his Father -- that he be Servant
for us. The more we open our hearts to a deeply personal friendship with Jesus, the more we will open our hearts to ask the Father to use us,
to be servants, too.
Then our desiring starts to be transformed. We
will gradually and more deeply begin to ask for the graces we need -
which is a more humble place to begin than making bold promises. We'll
ask our Lord to purify our desiring. We will ask for the grace to be drawn
into the pattern of Jesus' loving and forgiving. We'll ask for the desire
to surrender more, to let go of our own needs more completely so that
we can give ourselves to the needs of others first. We will begin to
see the people closest to us with Jesus' eyes, with Jesus' heart. Our
love for them won't depend upon how much they please us or even how
much they reciprocate our love. That isn't the way Jesus loves us. Jesus
loves us because we are sinners. Jesus loves us because we need forgiving
and healing. Jesus loves us because we need loving.
Gradually, our resolutions get freer and more
about self-donation. We open our hands in prayer and say, "Lord, these are my desires and I
am asking you for the grace to live them." Gradually, the other
spirits lose their power, their attraction. As Jesus confronts and contradicts
the values of our culture in us and around us, the sillier all that
kind of desiring becomes. We don't change our way of consuming, our way of seeing our role in the world or hear the cry of the poor
day after day by strengthening our own will power.
Our life style and our
choices really become transformed when we become people who know, beyond
anything else, that we are loved unconditionally by our God. When we
become lovers of Jesus, we will naturally love the way he loves. When
we become followers of Jesus this will be a blessed new year, indeed.
And those who are sinners among us, the poor around the world, and those
who suffer the tragic effects of sin, division and war, will experience
the difference. |