New Year's Resolution (3)

I resolve to see more of New York City while I still can!

• visit each borough at least once (I haven't been to the Bronx or Staten Island or Brooklyn)
• go to the Bronx Zoo and the Central Park Zoo
• see a show on Broadway with O.
• visit MOMA once a month
• visit the World Trade Center memorial
• see the Cloisters
• walk all over Chinatown at least once
• go on a walking tour (if I can find a free one)

New Year's Resolution (2)

In the first six months of 2013, before we begin another cross-country journey and move (this time together), I want to finish reading certain books. It will be like a semester of pre-grad-school--only more like high school, because the subject matter is not well-focused well-rounded.

Here are the books, all of which I started reading at least six months ago:

1. Gesture and Thought by David McNeil -- has the most interesting ideas
2. Adger's Core Syntax -- this will be the hardest read by far; it's so technical that I only made it 5 or 10 pages in during my junior year after my introductory syntax class made me think I loved syntax.
3. The Barbarian Invasion -- This book I bought on impulse after Tim Keller said in a sermon that it was a great read. I never liked history class but I'm enjoying this book, although I'm sure I'll like it better if I read it more consistently so that I don't forget all the names between readings.
4. Old Testament Theology -- got this book exactly three years ago, started reading it this summer but haven't gotten out of the introduction. Non-fiction takes so much discipline for me to read.
5. Teach Yourself Turkish -- now that O. is home all the time, I think I can make good progress on this one!

I'll put links in another time, right now I need to power through five more blog posts to meet last year's resolution ;)

New Year's Resolution (1)

In 2013, I will floss my teeth every day, unless my hand is grievously wounded or there is no floss anywhere in the city.

Hold me to it, readers.

Resolutions

Two complementary ideas in my New Year's resolution(s): trust and fear. This semester was a season of being forced to acknowledge my insecurities, one by one. They popped out of corners and slid out of shadows. They nosed me from behind, like shy dogs; they crashed against my windows. And this semester was a season of finding myself held, soothed, brought inside.

Big changes are coming in 2011, in my external life. In my internal life, I want to see big changes, too. Having realized I am so dominated by fear (fear that floods over me, fear that drenches me, fear that knocks the air from my lungs), I have begun to want freedom from fear. I want to lie in the sun of security, and finally dry off, out of the reach of the waves. I don't want tidal waves of fear happening at the drop of a word, at the twist of a smile. I want to live in love, not fear: "Perfect love casts out fear. She who fears is not made perfect in love." I want to trust, instead. I want to trust O. more, trust my fellowship more, trust my friends more. I want to trust God more.

Freedom from fear, freedom to trust. For 2011, I resolve to graduate out of fear into the liberty of love.

Resolutions

Each week:
5 posts
1 hour of exercise
24 hours without AIM
1 hour of praying

Each day:
3 chapters of scripture

And the most impossible one:
0 new book purchases until I finish reading the ones I own already (This may be a resolution for the next 3+ years.)

Ask me if I'm doing these things, someone, please!

Ambition

Here is my life-goal: to be able to read Psalm 27 and say every word with conviction, especially this part:

2 When evil men advance against me to devour my flesh,
when my enemies and my foes attack me, they will stumble and fall.

3 Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear;
though war break out against me, even then will I be confident.

4 One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.

5 For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling;
he will hide me in the shelter of his tabernacle and set me high upon a rock.

I've been reading I & II Samuel, and I am so struck by the complete trust that David displays. I don't mean to imply that David never feared or faltered, but time and again he acts, risking everything, in complete trust. His faith is completely real and practical. For instance, he consults G-d about military decisions (ex. II Sam. 5:17-25), and unhesitatingly takes the answers he gets as clear and trustworthy. I want to have that kind of radical abandonment to G-d's sovereignty, and that kind of clarity when I seek His will.

I want it so badly because I don't have it now. So often I catch myself thinking of praying as a self-help deal, or as a bonding exercise, or a good habit to teach kids, or as a demonstration of belief, when really it is a direct appeal to the Almighty, which, regardless of how the pray-ers feel during or after the prayer, has unfathomable capacity to invite G-d's intervention. When I pray, I don't often get a definitive-feeling answer--certainly nothing as concrete as the replies David gets. When I feel like I'm risking something, I don't have the rock-hard conviction that David expresses in this psalm. And I want that.

I want to feel and live consistently with what I say I believe.

But for now, I'm going to memorize the psalm.

Summer!

So! I've been horribly lax about updating this blog for the past while. Blame goes partly to finals, partly to emotional exhaustion, partly to lack of computer access. (Not that I'm complaining, since if I had to choose between spending the rest of my life without a computer and spending the rest of my life without mountain get-aways, I would definitely forgo the computer.) But the factor that really matters in my not posting is just a lack of discipline. . . I haven't been "feeling" the writing. . . haven't taken the time. . . But I'm going to! After this sorry excuse for a piece of writing, real posts will follow. I am resolved.

This is going to be a summer of structure. The practical reason is that my internship (40hrs/wk) forces me to plan out my time expenditure; the emotional or spiritual or personal reason is that I need the constraints and rhythms of habit to bring me to the place I want to be in relation to G-d and my own sense of self.

Confession: This past semester, I was singularly undisciplined in all sorts of domains. It started with emotions and a relationship, and drifted into my time management, and then my spiritual/personal life, and even (a little) academics (in my patterns and methods of getting things done, and my attitudes--I still finished things and did well in the end.) It wasn't even so much whether I did or didn't do things, as how I did them: with what frame of mind, what internal state. I couldn't concentrate, couldn't settle down. Disharmony dominated me.

Which is not what G-d's will is.

I am seeking integration and . . . something else. Purification? Harmony? Growth? All of the above, I suppose.

My means to those ends is habit. Goals for the summer: memorize the book of Ephesians (with my sista!), have quiet time every day, keep Fridays as Sabbaths (from sunset on Thursday to sunset on Friday, no computers, no spending money, no secular reading). I also want to read various books / learn various things, keep up with this blog; see friends, ride my bike, cook; sleep. Blog-wise, I'm going to try to post Tues/Thurs/Sat. Three days a week is fair, right? I'll start that schedule tomorrow. :)