Last year I suggested to the parish I serve not to create New Year’s resolutions. The gentle challenge had a practical application: Most New Year’s resolutions end in failure, and what follows is personal guilt and blame. Instead, I recommended taking on New Year’s experiments. Experiments, by definition, welcome failure in order to learn something new. There is no guilt involved – only an adjustment or tweak here and there to run the experiment again. The message got through to some, and throughout this year I have had several parishioners share with me their various experiments, and what seemed to work or not.

As I ponder 2016, and look towards 2017 I will be running some new experiments of my own as well as continuing some of the experiments I ran this past year. I’d like to share a few of these with you, and challenge you to come up with your own.

My first experiment I will be continuing into 2017 is to read and listen to the “other side”.

Last year during the season of Lent and Easter, I challenged myself to read books on conservative thought, as well as to bend my ear towards many of my politically conservative friends. The immediate result of studying the history of conservative thought in England and America was that my political leanings drifted from the left into the middle. For me, this is a good place to be since my vocation lends its ear to those who wept during the presidential election (Democrats) and those who rejoiced (Republicans). Although the president-elect does not necessarily fit into the traditional mold of American party politics, through my reading and conversation, I have a better grasp of where his proposed policies or political appointments stand on the spectrum of the conservative/liberal spectrum.

Where I will continue this experiment on into the new year is to get my news from newspapers and in-depth books – not social media, or television. For 2017, I have subscribed to two local papers, The Douglas County Sentinel and the Atlanta-Journal Constitution. I have also subscribed to The New York Times and The Washington Post. These newspapers not only hold to the code of sound journalism, but by subscribing to them, I am also supporting this important medium of news reporting. Thus far, my reading and understanding of the issues that are important to my community and our world have been enlightening.

My second continuation of 2016 experiments is to read fiction and poetry.

Reading is a life-long love of mine, so this will probably never change; but as I get older I am realizing more and more the power of novels, poetry, and short-stories on the imagination, the soul, and how they can inform me in totally different ways than a newspaper ever will. I read 28 books this last year. I’m challenging myself to do 30 for 2017.

My final experiment is to continue to practice my vocation of the priesthood.

This means praying the Daily Office everyday, reading and studying the Bible weekly, writing sermons that challenge, loving the parishioners I serve, as well as serving ‘the other,’ ‘the stranger,’ and ‘the neighbor’ outside the walls of the parish. I feel all of this begins at home. I practice my calling to the priesthood by practicing my vocation to marriage and parenting. This translates into all walks of my life; so to be a good father, husband, and son means being a good priest and visa-versa. I thank God for my family (and extended parish family) everyday. This gratitude is something I want God to remind me of more and more in the coming years.

These are simple, yet doable experiments, and please take notice that none of my experiments have anything to do with fear or anxiety. These two vices played roughly in 2016, but will be sidelined in 2017 as far as I’m concerned. I have no time for them.

In closing, these are experiments – not resolutions. I won’t necessarily complete them in the way I may imagine them now, but that’s okay. I will dust myself off and try again. So, here’s to 2017 – another year to dust your self off and try again – And try again we must.