Category Archives: New Year

Hopeful Realism for 2024, Part 1

January 11th, 2024 |

Every new year begins with forecasts and predictions for the coming months. Some of these are thoughtful prognostications rooted in good research and reflection. Other are subjective guesses, offered as clickbait in a fantastical or fatalistic spirit. In this essay, I want to offer some pithy statements to stimulate thoughtfulness and ethical action. In a world awash with extremes, I hope these will encourage hearts and empower creativity.

Realism: We will continue seeing President Trump hounded by his enemies and his supporters labeled as extremists.

Hope: Both parties will offer alternatives to the current and previous administrations.

Hopeful realism: Perhaps we can debate important issues like the budget, immigration, foreign policy, and a balanced view of the environment.

Realism: Gender anarchists will continue advocating for unsafe procedures on minors and insist that identity is purely subjective.

Hope: Thoughtful people are waking up to the destructive narcissism and big pharma influences on impressionable young people.

Hopeful realism: Permitting adults (on their dime) to modify and express their identity is part of a free society. At the same time, parents must retain final authority in caring for their children.

Realism: Israel will be criticized regardless of her military or political actions by intersectional radicals that think she is an oppressor of Palestinians.

Hope: Thoughtful folks will see that Israel wants peace with her neighbors. This is only possible with a new generation of Arab leaders willing to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist as the national home of the Jewish people.

Hopeful realism: Israel will win the current conflict and will establish security measures, allow aid to flow, and attempt to welcome a peaceful solution for both Gaza and the West Bank.

Realism: Colleges and universities will face further reckonings concerning true freedom of ideas and speech.

Hope: Educational leaders will restore the true exchange of ideas and not allow agitators to veto presentations.

Hopeful realism: We will continue seeing older institutions refuse to change their ways while new, entrepreneurial ones find success.

We will continue exploring the future in the next essay. Here is some food for thought as we step forward this year. Let’s reject fatalism (“Nothing will change…”) and fantasy (Everything will be wonderful…”)  and choose faith, hope, and love as our dispositions and discover a future filled with unexpected delights, inexplicable challenges, and increasing wisdom.

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The Year 2020: Transformative Resolutions

January 7th, 2020 |

Every year, millions resolve to begin a new year with commitments to personal improvement, from diet and exercise to intellectual and spiritual pursuits. These are worthy and should be pursued with hopeful realism.

In this essay, I want to suggest four resolutions that are doable, apply to all dimensions of life, and will help us empower others toward a flourishing life and community. These resolutions come in two couplets. The first concerns our inner motivations and speech and the second our personal integrity and competencies in daily work. I write these as a Christian, with a deep love for the Hebrew Scriptures and Christian Scriptures that comprise the Holy Bible. These principles are applicable, however, to people of all faiths or none.

The first pair are found in Psalm 19:14 where the author desires that his words and inner meditations would be acceptable before God. Practically, this is a call for continual self-examination of our motives and speech. Do we desire to honor God and bring good to our world, or is life all about our advantage, position, or power? When we must confront issues, are we doing so with a view to peacemaking or winning for its own sake? And, in our speech, are we capitulating to reactions and vulgarity or pausing long enough to respond with kindness and wisdom?

The second duo is found in Psalm 78:72, where the writer commends King David’s leadership, noting that he shepherded God’s people with “integrity of heart and skillful hands.” As we look to a new year, this pair of attributes is a great resolution for our daily work. We are all stewards of the opportunities, relationships, resources, and tasks each day brings. Will we continually examine our motives and see how things fit together? And will we grow in our capacities and competencies and increase the skillfulness of our work? Apathy is waiting at the door to paralyze our preferred future. Active learning will help us and all around us thrive.

Soren Kierkegaard, 19th century Danish thinker, wrote a book entitled, “Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing.” The title is the message and it sums up these four resolutions well. When our hearts and hands, intents and actions, motives and words align, we are at peace and the world is a better place.

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