New Year, Same Old Resolutions

Happy 2009!
I once was big on New Year's Resolutions. I always wanted to "reinvent" myself. So I resolved to read more, eat less, exercise more, worry less, write more, criticize less and so on.

I usually found that by the 2nd week of the new year, whatever year it was, I was pretty much back to being the same old, same old I'd always been.

The New Year is really just an artificial creation that helps to give us some fixed points in our lives. There is nothing natural about designating the 12th or 11th day after the winter solstice as the beginning of a new historical era. So why do we put such importance on it as a time of new beginnings other than the fact that we have a need to look back and look ahead and this is about the best we've been able to come up with so far?

I do want to do some things better this year just as I want to make some improvement all through my life.

I want to be a better job as a political organizer. I don't know yet if that means I will run again for Oklahoma County chairman or try for some other office in the Democratic Party, but I resolve to stay involved and do my best at whatever I do.

I want to be a better teacher. My students deserve the best I can give them, so I'm going to work on planning my lessons and getting my grading done in a timely manner.

I want to be healthier, so I'm going to work a little at it this year. We'll see how long that lasts.

I want to be a better person, so I'm going to work things of the spirit. I once studied for the ministry, and I've never lost my interest in spirituality, so I'd like to explore this part of my life again.

I also resolve to get back on this blog more. I enjoy writing, and some tell me they enjoy reading some of what I have to say.

So here's to a new year, and a not so new, but hopefully, improved me.

If anyone is reading this, I wish you a safe, properous New Year.

Hate E-Mail and Obama's Prayer

Sen. Barack Obama places his prayer in a crack in the Western Wall in Jerusalem
I have a friend nicknamed "Freenie" who sends me the e-mails that she gets from several of her more conservative friends. Most of these are rants, rumors, urban legends, or half-truths that deal with current events, politics, and scare mongering. Occasionally there is one of two that are mostly true, but not often.

Her reason for sending me this stuff is to alert me to what's out there and for me to do a little fact checking for her. I usually use the Urban Legends Reference page, aka Snopes.com, which catches about 90% of these things.

Of course, this being a presidential year, there are many e-mails dealing with politics, particulary the candidacy of Barack Obama. His presumptive nomination seems to have hit a nerve with many on the lunatic fringe. You've probably seen them. Obama is a Muslim, an athetist (sometimes in the same e-mail!). He is secretly plotting to hand us over to the terrorists. He is a black racist. He hates America and won't salute the flag. He took his oath of office on the Koran. None of these are true, but trying to refute them seems to be the equivalent of trying to rid your house of a particulary nasty infestation of cockroaches.

Here's one e-mail report that probably won't be making the rounds, but it should. Obama has been doing a tour of the Middle East and Europe that has been rather successful, IMHO. While he visited Israel, he visited the Western Wall, the holiest site for Jewish believers worldwide. He left a prayer there that, without his knowledge or consent, was removed and published by an Israeli newspaper. (This violation of Barack Obama's privacy has outraged many in the rabbinic community, but that is another story.

His prayer shows a lot about the man who is villified by many who use the ease and relative anominity of the internet to spread their hate. It is as follows:

"Lord — Protect my family and me. Forgive me my sins, and help me guard against pride and despair. Give me the wisdom to do what is right and just. And make me an instrument of your will."

This prayer is very much in the spirit of the man who wrote The Audacity of Hope: spiritual, humble, a seeker after God's will. Those who try to impugn his character need to ask forgiveness of the God who Barack Obama serves.
Israeli paper publishes Obama's private prayer