I have to start this quotage with some words from Lucia, who really reminds us that our dating system ain’t from the common era, but the Christian one.

Approximately 2014 years ago, something so momentous happened that it literally split history in half. That momentous even was the birth of God as a human being, and not even alternate religious systems (Islam) or political systems (French Revolution and Communism) could erase the numbering of our years from the birth of Christ.

It is A.D. 2014, which is Anno Domini 2014, which is in English, in the Year of Our Lord 2014. Even the atheistic Common Era that attempted to replace Anno Domini cannot erase the fact that we number our years based on when Jesus Christ was born.

Spiritually.

This blog is the discipline and fruit of my bible reading plan. Many people read the bible through every year: I used to do that using three bookmarks, a notepad, and allowing one psalm, 5 chapters of the OT and two of the NT to cover everything. But I use the lectionary because my church uses the lectionary: and for those who are not Presbyterian this link remains useful because basically every seasonal or liturgical Western Church uses the same Common Lectionary, and the texts for it are there.

My challenge has always been prayer. As I get older, I am getting better at it, but I tend to prefer to argue than reflect. The Blog forces me to reflect. On Prayer? Well, this is a struggle. Some would recommend operation world. Some 24 / 7 prayer rooms, and some would say just use the classic forms, such as the Book of Common Prayer or the other liturgical toosl that abound.

My resolution is simpler. I want to pray as I write the daily lectionary blog. The prayers will probably not be in the blog, as a fair number of them will be very personal, but already I’m writing down some of the intercessory prayers that are going on in my life.

Musically

And if you’re an adult reading this, wishing you “had it to do over again”, stop. Regret doesn’t change anything…but action does. Music gives so much and takes nothing but commitment. So get busy! Play. Sing. Do something positive for yourself and those you love. What else can you do that gives back so much? And who knows, you may even inspire a young one while you do it. It just doesn’t get much better than that. 🙂

Keep (or start) playing.

I am Not, repeat not, a morning person. My mind runs on late into the night. For me, music practice is best in the evening. So… I will pull a musical instrument out of the bag each day. In the evening.

So the next time you run into a problem in the practice room (or elsewhere) that has you stumped, and you need new ideas to try, new approaches or solutions to implement, take a break.

Take a shower. Mow the grass. Wash the dishes. Fold laundry. Do something that uses some brain power, but not too much.

Don’t think about the problem directly, but just let your mind wander for a bit, then come back to your instrument after a little while.

My instrument of study and improvement is the viola. But I can play guitar and ukulele, so for 2014 I will play with more than one instrument. Multi-instrumentalism rocks: and the guitars and ukes have been neglected over the last few years. Time to have some fun.

Fitness.

Last year the aim was to lose some weight and get pain free: with a lot of help from the good people at Body Synergy I am down to about three places that hurt a lot. This year there are three things I want to explore.

The first relates to diet.  With two teenage boys in the house, both with a fairly heavy to extremely heavy course load, an experiment with 16hour fasting failed. However, if I eat a low carb breakfast I note that I can get to dinner fairly easily. So this year we will probably go hemi-semi-paleo: mainly by cutting down the bread and baking we have. We generally prefer rice to wheat anyway, and as far as Ic an see packaged cereal has less nutritional value than dark chocolate, and without the taste.

The second is around measurement. This is around using tools, such as the fitbit pedometer and apps such as endomondo to quantify my daily effort, aiming to get over 70K paces a week and over 6H of high intensity effort a week.

The third is one that I have failed at, and that is starting doing races again. So it’s modified. I want to enter a race a quarter, and complete them, as a walker if needs be.

I think a few small changes is better than a whole lot of big ones. We need to make changes as our lives continue, and then trust God to allow these changes to bear fruit in the lives of those around us.