Thought for the Week

by Peter Morrison, St Anne's RC Church, Keighley

IT’S that time when many of us feel obliged to make a New Year’s resolution: lose some weight, get to the gym, give-up smoking, the usual well-worn notions.

Most of us fall by the wayside sooner or later – and I’m no exception. Everyday life gets in the way of the best of intentions. Often I’ve come to regret ever making a resolution in the first place. This year I'll try to be different. The question is – yes, but how?

The Greek philosopher Socrates once observed that the unexamined life is not worth living.

Each of us needs to pause for thought every now and again and ask why we think we are here and what we are doing.

I doubt that Socrates meant that each of us should become a revolutionary and turn the world on its head, rather that we should not lose sight of the fact that life needs to have some purpose as we go on. Otherwise we simply exist without any sense of direction. We’ve lost the point.

In the opening weeks of 2018 all of us, whatever our persuasions, have a lot to reflect upon. Thousands are struggling to make ends meet. The numbers of homeless are increasing. Every day we see life’s unfortunates spending their days trying to keep warm on the pavement. The list is endless. Seeing things from that perspective, we might stop to consider that getting to the gym twice a week doesn't seem that pressing by comparison.

So for 2018's New Year resolution perhaps it's time to go with the words of St Paul (Romans 12, 1-9): "be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God".