This is my first writing of the year 2012, and I guess there is much to talk about, although this will be informal.
The past 18 months, from roughly June 2010, have been challenging - we have faced financial challenges, had to redefine where I am spiritually, and we ended up with a new place to live, a new car, and a new job. Although some valuable education has been gained from living the past year, I personally am glad it is over though - this is a time of new beginnings for our household, and that being said, it is up to us (in conjunction with God's sovereign will, of course) to make this year a year that we can look back on as one of our best. I say this not only for myself, but for the benefit of all who read this, as it is something we all must reassess individually and take positive steps to move forward.
Since September, we have moved back to Lakeland, where I originally graduated from college, and I have, as of the first of this year, entered a new job that basically opens up a whole new area of work for me. At the time I am writing this, I am still in some very extensive training for it, and it is both intense and interesting at the same time as it is also inspiring me by providing new material for research that many of you will be seeing both in these articles as well as on my theological webpage. God has created all of us with minds, and we continue to use them throughout our lives, as the learning process only ends when our heart stops in natural death. Thing is, we are not to use this knowledge as just a storehouse of parroting facts back to people on demand, but rather it is to be used to apply to our lives and to make them either better or more efficient. Everything we do - formal schooling, work, what we read, watch and hear, etc. - contributes to that reservoir. I guess the resolution we all have is how to effectively channel what we have accrued in our intellectual reservoir in order to enhance our individual qualities of life. God has given us that mandate to ensure we are proper stewards of the things he gives us, and those things are not all material - much of it is spiritual and intellectual too.
I chose this year to resolve not to make any New Year's resolutions for a reason - resolutions often set a bar too high for us to reach, and that is why, as our priest noted in his homily at Mass a couple of weeks ago, that by March all those people on the bike trail that started out so enthusiastically in January disappear by March. And, it is why the few pounds you resolve to lose end up being a few pounds heavier by Easter - you do see where that is going, right? Mistakes can be stepping-stones as well as stumbling-blocks, and although you may trip over them at first, eventually you pick up your feet and climb the block. A common mistake I have made over the years, tying this all back together, is setting things too high and out of reach, thus ending badly in frustration. So, I personally have done the Biblical thing, so to speak, and have refrained from making oaths I don't have the capacity to fill.
That being said, does this mean I don't have goals and objectives? Not at all - Lord knows I have a lot of those, perhaps too many! What it does mean, however, is that I approach those ideas realistically and try to make them happen within a reasonable means of attainment. It is a lesson that I very much have had to learn the hard way, and after getting my knees scraped so many times, I realize this is the way to do things that makes more sense.
I guess now I need to take time to talk personally about some things though. The several years - eight in Largo, 5 in St. Pete, meaning 13 total - we spent in Pinellas County, FL, were a sort of exile for us. However, they were also a time I began to look within myself, and really understand what my own story is all about. And, I had the inspiration to write it all down, both as an unpublished manuscript as well as a regular and consistent amount of journal-keeping, and that is something I cannot stress enough for you to do. Your story is something God has given you - it is your testimony, your legacy, and your school of life experience - so write it down and NEVER underestimate its value. Who knows - your story could inspire and help someone else someday. These blogs grew out of that, as a matter of fact, and I have been able to organize and formulate my collective life story and worldview into an easily-digested form to share with many of you, although I sincerely hope that it doesn't give you indigestion at times either! I find I communicate more effectively in writing than I do in speaking, and doing this is a great venue that helps me as well. And, as I do, I learn a thing or two about myself as well. In the past two years, I have developed three websites and write as many as 70 articles annually now, which I also print out and have bound in books at home too. They encompass all areas of my interests, my faith, and my worldview, as well as my personal story as I have lived it and to the best of my ability to recall things from many years past. I hope to continue this for many years to come.
An important part of that story is understanding your past, even your roots that presage you personally. Genealogy has been a big interest of mine since high school, but in the past 10 years, and thanks to the new technologies available, I have been able to take this a long way. Learning about your ancestors is an important way of understanding your own worldview, because whether indirectly or directly, some of the thinking of your ancestors has come down to you - simply, you inherit more from your forebears a lot of times other than just DNA! As I particularly have researched my paternal grandmother's family, who have a family tree going back almost 2000 years being they are of French Huguenot heritage and are tied into both European nobility and Sephardic Jewry, I found out about something called Nobless Oblige. What that is essentially entails a sort of "warrior's code" that goes back to the Visigoths, Lombards, and others who are in my bloodline, and essentially what it says is this - with noble bearing comes noble responsibility. In today's society, where many people are so stuck on themselves and on other crazy notions shaping much of the modern world, this is almost a foreign concept because it involves three things:
1. Be true to your word
2. If you claim to be something, act accordingly
3. Manners, chivalry, and etiquette
Many people have as their role models today many lying politicians and musicians and movie stars who present themselves as one thing in the public light, but live radically different in private. It is deceptive, and it harms people - take the modeling industry as a good example. That, along with an increasing selfishness (an "every man for themselves," evolutionary survival-of-the-fittest mentality) has diminished us as a nation and as a society in general. It has even gotten into Christian churches now, where anything goes as long as the numbers are good, etc. However, it is fake, and it rings hollow. I have a strong conviction within me I could not explain for years that basically dictated me a desire to be real and who I am, but at the same time emphasizing what is best about who I am. Later, when a couple of relatives who researched the family histories made me aware of the concept of Nobless Oblige, I now understand where that came from. That, of course, doesn't mean you deny your shortcomings - if you are confronted with those, you are honest about them, but you don't emphasize them constantly. Added to that my Appalachian upbringing - things such as "sense of place," "making do," and other things, as well as a strong identity with the misunderstood and persecuted being I have shared their experience to a certain degree (hence, my strong connections to Assyrian Christians and Gypsies) - and the general "live-exceeds-talk" faith of my Swiss/German Anabaptist roots, it shaped me as a person and bears much influence on my worldview. Now that I understand that, I appreciate it more too. And, most of that was discovered over the past 10 years or so as I began to recollect and write down my own story, as well as tracing my personal genealogy - the two are inseparable. And, this has had its share of conflict too - many who don't share my upbringing and roots don't really get where I come from, and I have made enemies of some, but that is how it goes. After all, it is unrealistic to think everyone is going to like you and throw themselves at your feet in adoration (I thank those of you who want to do that though - just kidding!); personality conflicts are a part of our fallen human nature, and are going to happen whether we want them to or not. But, even those who conflict with you can respect you, and you them, as long as you are real with who you are and they reciprocate. And, those who conflict like that can even end up being valued friends in some cases - conflicting worldviews don't mean you have to be enemies! And, conflict in personality doesn't mean misunderstanding or lack of appreciation - you can disagree with someone and still understand where they come from, thus appreciating the fact better. Of course, in some cases that also means there may be a few headbutts along the way, but in time they work themselves out too. Bottom line, not everyone who is your friend has to be your "yes-man" as well. Your life would be a lot more boring if that were the case.
In these ramblings, I guess I could sum up what I am saying in two good points:
1. Get to know yourself better, your roots, and recount your story.
2. Don't view those who may give you personality conflicts as necessarily your enemies - on the contrary, they may become your most trusted friends!
That being said, I look forward to a good year ahead, and hope that I learn a lot more about myself in the process, as we who profess to be Christians are on a pilgrimage of faith called life, trekking to the heavenly Zion we all have set as a destination once we profess Jesus Christ as our Savior and become baptized into His Church. And indeed, that is what our faith is - a pilgrimage. As I continue the pilgrim trail this coming year, I hope the journey is an enjoyable one. And, I wish the same for each of you. See you next time!
