Goals for the New Year

I recently described to a friend that rather than set a new year's resolution to begin in January, I prefer to look at my resolutions as beginning on my birthday. After all, the new year for me starts on the day I started my first year. Right?

That being said, there is something about the cold, snowy, gloomy months of December and January that makes me want to set some sort of goal. Something I can focus on to distract me while I wait for it to get warmer. Or maybe it's not the warmth issue, but the issue of the lakes of slush water that make it nearly impossible to get from one place to another on foot with dry feet. Honestly though, I really love winter. I love soup, fireplaces with brightly burning logs, hot cocoa, snuggling under blankets and spending entire days in my sweats. I also love that when it's cold outside I have a great excuse to curl up under a blanket and read to my heart's content.

So back to the idea of goals for a new year. Amidst all the slush and bundling up and the long nights, I do like to set goals (I just refuse to call them resolutions). This year K. and I are traveling to a new continent for both of us, I'll graduate with my MPH, and we're  raising money for St. Jude Children's hospital ($3000 between the two of us--how's that for a goal!!?). Another one of my goals is perhaps less exciting to the world at large, but very exciting for me. It is something I hope will be incredibly satisfying to my soul.

I have set a goal, through one of my favorite websites:goodreads, to read 52 books this year. That may not seem to be a lot (here I go comparing myself again: I'm basing this statement on the fact that some people have goals to read upwards of 80 books during 2011. just remember, self, you have a job that demands a lot of reading, you "read slow"--or so you think, and you have a fellowship and some school things to finish up before graduating. besides, does it really matter how much anyone else reads? do you really have to read the most books of anyone on goodreads in 2011?), but it represents one per week. So far it's the 4th week of the year and I'm at book 4, 7% towards my goal and on track.


Currently I'm reading Belief: Readings on the Reason for Faith, a book of essays and excerpts from great thinkers of all backgrounds compiled by Francis S. Collins. I'd like to say I met him once, but I'd be lying. In fact, I heard him speak...semi-live. I was at a research ethics conference (can we say amazing? the nerd in me loved every minute) and he was in DC, about to do something important as the head of the NIH (National Institutes of Health for those of you who aren't in the research/health fields), so he spoke to us about the importance of ethics in research via webcam. Ah, modern technology.

So yes, he's the head of the NIH. And aside from being a well known, brilliant man of science, he compiled a book of rational arguments for faith. Why? Because he's a man who went from not believing in anything to having strong faith in God. And he did not do this by forsaking his passion for and skill in science and thought. No. This man realized (as he apparently describes in the next book of his I plan to read: The Language of Life: DNA and the Revolution in Personalized Medicine) that science is really a testament to the wonder of God.

Here I must pause and slightly digress. I realize that writing a post about God and faith, and using terms like "the wonder of God" may turn away some of my potential readers. In fact, I don't blame you. There was a time in my life when I would have done the same. And I know that it may reduce my credibility to some of you. Here again is one of those moments when my struggle to be "perfect" and "everything" in the eyes of everyone else conflicts greatly with what my heart is saying I really need: to have peace in the fact that I am a human, and to recognize that spirituality is something that is incredibly important to me, and that even though it won't necessarily jive with everyone I meet, it's ok.

This all has relevance, I promise.

My point is, I am thoroughly enjoying this book, having a strong background in science myself (but ahem, I will NOT be comparing myself to Dr. Collins...he's pretty amazing), and seeking truth as some might say. At least that's how we put it at my UU church. I am seeking. And in my seeking I am reading just about everything I can get my hands on that has to do with the journey people take to find and accept and grow in whatever faith they claim as their own.

As I am stumbling through this process myself, it is the process that others go through that fascinates me to no end. Frankly, the end of someone's journey (is there really an end to the spiritual journey?) is of little consequence to me. I want to know what they struggled with, what questions they had, who they read or talked to or thought about to find answers. What modes of prayer, meditation or thought brought them to new realizations and connections. I want to know it all. And I suppose deep down somewhere in my heart I hope that by knowing how others do it, I myself will "find my way." Ah, to dream and to hope.

So for 2011 I set out with a bagful of goals, the most personal of which is to read my heart out and in so doing, discover more about this world and myself. If you feel so inclined, join me on Goodreads and set your own reading goal! I promise not to compare our progress.