New Year's resolution: Read more

Friday, Jan. 09, 2015

I had an epiphany on Christmas Day. Not an angels-blaring-trumpets revelation, but the quiet kind that I usually miss when God speaks because I’m so busy telling him what he’s NOT doing that I miss what he is actually up to.

On Christmas Day, though, I was too worn out to complain about how God has failed to run the world to my specifications. It hadn’t been a festive season: What with an imminent death in the family, a case of plantar fasciitis that refuses to heal and a bout of flu, I wasn’t much in the celebratory spirit. Then, when I returned from Mass on Christmas Day, I tried to open the front door and the deadbolt spun round and round.

I took the key out, put it back in – and the lock turned round and round and round.

At 10 a.m. Christmas Day, with snow falling, I was locked out of my condo.

I sighed and took out my cell phone. My sister, who lives about 15 minutes away, invited me over to stay warm while I made arrangements with a locksmith.

About halfway to her house, I realized I was thanking God for cars, cell phones and sisters rather than cursing broken locks, the weather and bad luck.

This is where the God moment comes in. Just the day before I had been reading the part of Choosing Joy: The Secret to Living a Fully Christian Life by Dan Lord, where he states “God’s will is in the situations that we encounter in our lives” and that is true no matter what the circumstances, he stresses. According to him, whether we are helping an old lady or we have a flat tire, the question we face is how to respond to the situation.

I confess that my typical response to flat tires and broken deadbolts is more reminiscent of a petulant 2-year-old than an adult Christian. It’s a fault I’ve been working to correct, and as I drove along I realized that God was answering my prayers. Nowhere was the anger and frustration that I usually feel when confronted with this type of annoyance. Instead, I felt grateful – truly grateful – that I had the resources to deal with the problem.

Unfortunately, I suspect that despite the inspiring experience of Christmas Day, I’m not through with my struggles in this area. (The fact that as I headed back home to meet the locksmith I said some unkind words to the driver ahead of me – who insisted on driving seven miles under the speed limit – is a clue that I have more work to do.) Still, I’m praying that when the credit card bill comes due I feel only gratitude for the fact that I can pay it, not malice for the amount it cost to have someone come out on a holiday, within an hour of my call, and replace the broken lock so I could get into the kitchen to make breakfast.

 Another thing I’ve realized is that reading books like Lord’s helps to maintain my Christian attitude. It’s kind of like physical exercise: Getting to a peak is only the first step; you actually have to work at it to stay there, or if you want to go higher. 

So my New Year’s resolution is to read more. I’ve started “The Confessions of St. Augustine” and Pope Francis’ “Joy of the Gospel,” but both of those are slow going. They’re definitely readable, just overwhelming unless you take it a page or two at a time. Books like Lord’s, on the other hand, are easier to comprehend. I’ve already got a couple of others similar to it, so I have no excuse not to start on Jan. 1.

Happy New Year!