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A New Year’s Resolution for 2012

I jokingly told a friend that my New Year’s resolution was to be perfect.  In 2012 my temperament, decision-making skills, exercise and eating habits, and of course morality would be appropriate for every situation, and every occasion. My children would receive the proper nurturing and boundaries that would help them grow and thrive.  My staff at work would be provided the encouragement, direction and guidance empowering them to do their jobs in the most productive way. Wouldn’t life be easier if we were perfect?  There would be no need for second-guessing, no apologies and no guilt.  Of course the desire to be perfect may come from the reality that so much of my life has not been perfect.  If only I was cured of the human condition.

Fortunately, it is not necessary to be cured of the human condition.  If our celebration of Christmas should teach us anything, it is that being human is good. It is so good that God became one of us.  As a human being, Jesus experienced everything that we do (except sin).  Jesus would have had emotions, worries, doubts, hopes, and dreams.  Even though he was God, Jesus entered into the full messiness of our human existence—even suffering and death.  In spite of his participation in humanity it has not cured us of our weakness or shortcomings.  In other words, we have not become perfect.  We live in a world that remains broken.   We are surrounded by poverty, violence, addiction, illness and broken relationships.  We are not immune from making poor choices.  The incarnation has not prevented us from being sinful.  Perhaps what we need isn’t perfection, but forgiveness.

The appeal of a New Year’s resolution is that we are given a second chance.  Growing up my parents and Catholic education did a phenomenal job of teaching right from wrong and emphasizing the need to make good decisions.  Unconsciously we were taught that these good decisions would help us earn redemption.  Forgiveness seemed to get second billing.  Needing to be perfect seemed far more important than being forgiven for our mistakes and sinfulness.  Sadly the pursuit for perfection can prevent us from being open to the grace of God.  In fact perfection is arrogant in that it promotes our human status beyond what we are created to be.  Accepting forgiveness begins with humility and standing before God as we are—people created in the image and likeness of God, but also people who need the unmerited grace of God to heal us of our sin and brokenness.  

I am sure that whatever feelings of wanting to be perfect, jokingly or not, is rooted in some poor choices I have made in my life.  The consequences of those actions are complicated and long lasting.  Guilt has a life of its own.  It has the ability to paralyze and impact self-esteem.  Perfection is not the answer –forgiveness is.  Jesus’ life demonstrated a total surrender to God.  If we surrender our lives to God and trust in God’s healing presence, we are delivered from the need to be perfect and we are offered that second chance we seek when making a New Year’s resolution. 

Today we live in a world in which there is little tolerance for mistakes.  We live in a world in which people find reasons to be critical of one another.  As brothers and sisters in Christ perhaps our New Years resolution for 2012 could be to offer forgiveness to one another and to accept God’s forgiveness.  By doing so we will become the embodiment of the incarnation and make the presence of Christ real in our daily lives.  What a wonderful way to make the world a better place.  Happy New Year!     

TAGS     New Years resolution,  perfection,  forgiveness,  Joe Nettesheim

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I am sure at times that you are wondering what a retreat center does during the Christmas season.  Even if you are not wondering, I am going to tell you! 

We decided to make some changes to the main meeting room in TYME OUT I.  The meeting room is where the vast majority of the retreats occur.  The room gets a lot of use duing the retreat season, and usually we wait for the summer to make some of these changes.  But we got inspired and decided to make the changes during the down time that occurs around Christmas. 

Brenda Benishek, our housekeeper/maintenance engineer, Margie Lang, the Program Administrator, and Jessie Williams a very willing volunteer picked up some paint brushes the week before Christmas and got busy.  It took two days for the three of us to paint the walls, and six more hours of Jessie coming back to put her artistic touch to the room and this is what the finished product looks like.

(The west wall with the logo painted on it)

(The wall with the TV, and a scripture passage)

I hope you all will like it as much as we do.  Watch for more pictures next week when the room is put back together.

(Special thanks, as always to our Tuesday guys, Lou French, David Jones and Jim Janette, who work tirelessly to help us throughout every Tuesday of the year.  In TYME OUT I, they installed new backs to the benches and installed a new wall brace for the flat screen TV.  We couldn't have done it without them.)

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(The other day I sat down with Keith Bartley, our maintenance engineer, who has been out on sick leave for a year and a day.  Keith suffered a very serious injury to his leg on November 30th, 2010, while working at TYME OUT.  He has been convalescing at home since.  Besides being a great maintenance engineer, Keith is an artist.  Recently he took pictures of his art and wrote about what the last year has been like for him.  Here is what he had to say.  Margie Lang)

It’s October 2011, and it’s almost a year since my accident.  I made one stained glass window all year.  The window is called “Going with the Flow.”   This last year seems to have been like that.     

I’m on the couch watching the leaves fall as my wife is raking, a job I cannot do right now.  Well the year has been like that.  You know people ask me, “What happened, and what are you going to be able to do?”  I always answer, “I don’t know.  I’m not in charge of what’s unfolding.  Ask HIM up there.”

Sometimes when I’m confused about a problem, I ask for legal help.  Then everything becomes “Hush, Hush.”  People stop talking to you anymore.  It’s like the “Plant Detectives”  are watching, and of course their mouths are closed.

During this year and a day, I have had a lot of time to think.  I am not sure that has always helped me.  In fact, sometimes I feel fragmented, like an old sandman.

I woke up one day in intensive care with a catheter stuck up the back of my left leg.  A blood clot had been found.  Little did I know, I was a walking time bomb.  I turned on the flat screen TV in the intensive care room, and a Tsunami had just hit Japan and the nuclear power plant on the shore line.  The plant was leaking radioactive material.  I thought to myself, “Things can always be worse.  I am alive and I should appreciate it.”  The Tsunami would affect all life including the fish in the ocean. 

Questioning my faith one day, a bad science fiction monster came into my mind and then materialized in my art. (Picture to come soon)

I spent a lot of time on crutches this year.  My goal was to get to the day that I could use a cane.  So I made myself a cane holder to house my goal.  Art should be functional sometimes. 

While I don’t know what the future holds, it’s not here yet, I am not going to pull my hair out and imagine the worst.  My art does that for me.

This last year has given me time to think about these things.  I’d much rather be working, but I have learned a lot about myself. 

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When you go on retreat it is always hard to explain to those who haven't gone on retreat just what has happened.  It almost becomes one of those, "You had to be there," moments.  The presence of God is hard to explain to someone who wasn't there to experience it.  Well, it is doubly hard to explain what it is that I do when I am on vacation and people ask me what it is that I do.  That is exactly what I am experiencing this week while I am in Florida.

When I tell people I work at a youth center and that we do retreats, they immediately jump to the conclusion that I work with troubled youth.  I immediately tell them that is not the case at all.  I explain we do religious retreats for youth preparing for the sacrament of Confirmation, or we do relationship retreats, or character retreats, or retreats on topics that youth ministers or teachers would find helpful for the youth with whom they work; they nod but I get the feeling they do not really understand what I am talking about. 

It is hard to explain the spiritual journey that occurs every time a group of youth come into our building.  It is hard to explain the transformation that can occur in one weekend or one night.  It is mostly hard to explain the blessing I feel to be the person who gets to walk with these individuals on this most sacred journey. 

Yes, we play games with them.  Yes, we share meals with them.  Yes, we do a little bit of teaching with them.  But mostly we allow them to be in the presence of God.

Just a week ago, I was honored to walk with the 8th grade of St. Joseph, Wauwatosa, as they explored their role as the leaders of the school.  I also was privileged to journey with the freshmen of St. Anthony, Pewaukee, as they explored what Growing up Catholic has meant in their lives.   There really is no way to explain that to someone who has not been there.

I know people think they can do that while on vacation.  I am on vacation right now, and I do not think you can.  Maybe it is because I have experienced a youth retreat and the blessing it has brought to my life.  However, I pray that everyone will be able to experience that walk with God and then maybe they will understand the joy I feel being a part of a youth retreat center.

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The peace of Sister Benet ws with us on the day of her funeral!

It has been a week since we lost Sr. Benet.  Our hearts are heavy from that loss.  We have prayed together, cried together, and remembered together.  The hole still exists for all of us.

Sr. Benet will be missed for her innocence, kindness, and gentleness.  She radiated the love of Christ and was good to all she encountered.  Around TYME OUT she was willing to do anything although her primary focus was housekeeping and caring for the gardens around the retreat center. A few years ago she received the THANK YOU award at SPRINGTYME.  Accompanying the award was a gift of a tree. It became known as the “Benet tree.”  She told Sr. Kieran as they drove to TYME OUT on Friday that she wanted to see the color of “the Benet tree.”  This tree will be a memorial to the love Sr. Benet shared with us all.   It was a treasured moment to have Sr. Kieran and Sr. Benet at TYME OUT on Sunday for the installation prayer service and again Friday as they dropped in for a visit.  We are going to dearly miss our good friend, Sr. Benet.  We know that she is interceding for us in heaven. 

As we were leaving for the funeral, we saw a clematis which was growing in the garden, draped over the shoulder of the statue of Bernadette.  The flower had found its way to the very heart of Bernadette.  We all marveled at the beauty of the site.  We also thanked Sister Benet for her final gift to all of us.  There was a peace in knowing that Sister Benet was still working with the flowers around TYME OUT.

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