Dana Reardon - Reluctant Resolutions for 2009

Reluctant Resolutions for 2009

A man in his middle years was telling me a story the other day about getting really drunk on New Year's Eve and waking up in jail. On that particular year, he didn't have to think twice about what his New Year's resolution should be. It didn't take any careful introspection or prayer or meditation. It was obvious. He vowed to stay out of jail.

No seriously. He went to his first AA meeting on the second of January and never looked back. He thinks of that incident as the one that stands out as transformative in his life. What he realized was that his addiction to alcohol had imprisoned him even before the resultant behavior landed him in jail.

Some New Year's resolutions come from careful self inventory and weeks of prayer and introspection and some hit us in the face with the necessity of change.

I believe that the current economic environment can serve to hit us in the face with the necessity of change. We can draw our New Year's resolutions from the prison that our need for stuff that we can no longer afford puts us in.

The truth is that we were imprisoned by our greed and our covetousness even when we could slightly better afford the life of consumption. It was just harder to see. We can use this smack in the face of recession as a time to rethink our lives.

What do we really need? What gives us joy and fullness of life. Of course since we are flesh and blood physical people we can't just renounce stuff. Our addiction to stuff is a little like a food addiction. I always bemoan the fact that an alcoholic can give up alcohol but a food-aholic like myself cannot give up food. So to with possessions it becomes more complicated.

God created us in the flesh and wants us to enjoy this world that God made. Getting over our addiction to stuff should bring us more and not less joy.

There are resources out there to help. One book, The Challenge of the Disciplined Life Life by Richard Foster comes to mind. Of course it was written not for people who were being forced economically to downsize but for those who were longing for a simpler life. It may be less of a challenge to simplify if you are forced to. But it also may be spiritually harder. You may still be longing for stuff as my friend was for a bottle.

There are also all sorts of web sites that will help simplify your life. It seems almost funny to me that we need a guide to help us figure out what we need and don't need. It certainly is a measure of how far we have gotten from simple living.

Do I think that the current financial crisis was sent by God to cause some repentance? I have no idea. What I do know is that God can use all the ups and downs of our lives to draw us into a closer relationship. God can and certainly will use our struggles with money to reorder our lives.

Lord, As this New Year comes, may we see ways to glorify you in all that we do. Amen

The Rev. Dana Reardon is pastor at St. Paul Evangelical Lutheran Church, Warwick, RI. A lifelong Lutheran, she came to ordained ministry after 21 years in nursing, mostly in pediatric intensive care. She graduated from Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia in 1998 and served 4 ½ years in Upstate New York before becoming a New Englander. She is still trying to understand the accent. While in the Upstate New York Synod she chaired the Stewardship Team. That began her fascination with what makes stewards -- and more, what makes for generosity. She has three amazing daughters: Pastor Reardon says much of what she knows of life she learned from them.