It's that time again...time to look forward, set goals, and make plans. Every year I make a lengthy list of New Year's resolutions, with varying degrees of ambition. That list comes tomorrow.
But first, we need to check in on my 2024 resolutions and see how I measured up! So without further ado, here's my report card:
1. Read some poetry every day.
For the first five months of 2025, I spent between 5-10 minutes a day reading The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats, Ireland's most beloved poet. Upon finishing that book, I quickly devoured two books of modern poetry, one by Kate Baer and the other by Johnny Cash, which were lent to me by my friend Kelley.
And then I took a break from poetry that lasted, it turned out, six months.
So for six months I read poetry every day, and for six months I did not. Sounds like half credit to me.
(For what it's worth: generally, I still don't "get" poetry. But maybe I just need to be less pretentious about what poetry I choose, because I really enjoyed the Kate Baer book!)
Score: 0.5 out of 12
2. Memorize Scripture.
Sometimes I go into a new year with a resolution fully thought out, knowing exactly what steps I'm going to take to make it happen. Other times, I think, "Hmm, I should probably <fill in the blank>" with no battle plan whatsoever. You can imagine which tactic is more successful.
Memorizing Scripture, sadly, fell into the latter category: it was a well-meaning goal, but one I had put literally no thought into beyond, "That would be a good idea." It was...just not one I worked towards.
Score: 0.5 out of 12
3. Read Ulysses and Finnegans Wake.
I am Captain Ahab. Understanding the appeal of James Joyce, often critically regarded as the 20th century's greatest writer, is my white whale. And as of yet, my pursuit is going exactly as Ahab's does in Moby Dick.
As you may have read a couple of days ago, it took me the entire year (in fits and starts) to read Ulysses for a second time, and while I understand more of the historical and literary allusions now than I did the first time, I certainly don't like the book any more than I did the first time. Reading Ulysses was not fun or enlightening, it was punishing.
It's difficult to fathom that Finnegans Wake, which I never even touched this year, could be even more difficult of a read, but that is its reputation. Someday I'm sure my memory of 2025 will have faded enough that I will masochistically give that "book" a try. But I promise you, it'll be a while.
Score: 1.0 out of 12
4. Organize music library.
The admittedly ambitious goal here was to go through all 10,000+ songs in my iTunes library, cull the music I don't care about owning anymore, and burn what I do want to keep to CD so I have a physical copy of all my purchased music.
It took about 3 days for me to realize this project was going to take approximately a zillion hours. Worse, a zillion hours spent interacting with iTunes, a piece of software Apple stopped meaningfully updating about 15 years ago.
To make a short story shorter, I now have a drawer in my office full of still-blank CDs.
Score: 1.0 out of 12
5. Listen to Bob Dylan's complete discography.
After watching last year's biopic A Complete Unknown, I was convinced this would the Year of Dylan as far as my music listening was concerned. By February I had listened to Bob's debut album. By June I had listened to his debut album twice. And by December...I had listened to his debut album twice.
There's always next year, Mr. Zimmerman.
Score: 1.0 out of 12
6. Write a Lenten devotional book.
At the outset of the year, I decided I wanted to write and self-publish a companion to the Advent devotional book I wrote in 2022, this time for the season of Lent. Unfortunately, I pitched that idea to our Missions-Evangelism Committee at a time of year when we were in penny pinching mode, and they were concerned about the cost of printing such a book.
So, discouraged, I scrapped the project before February. Could I have still written it and distributed it as a PDF or a series of daily emails? Yeah. But I did not do that.
Score: 1.0 out of 12
7. Lead a strategic planning process for SGBC.
The work is far from done—we're nearly finished with the second phase of three, and the third phase is the most difficult—but not for lack of effort. Our team is doing good work analyzing our church's issues and determining what our core vision for the future needs to look like. Now all that's left is formulating the strategy to get there.
We've gotten a little bogged down in our second phase due to scheduling conflicts, but I'm eager to move forward in 2026 and have something we can present to the church as early as Easter. Pray for us!
Score: 2.0 out of 12
8. Get healthy.
I took this seriously longer than some of you expected me to...but that still wasn't long. Look for this resolution to reappear on my list for 2026. In fact, it's probably the resolution I'm taking the most seriously for the new year.
Score: 2.0 out of 12
9. Finish my sermons on Friday.
The goal here was to free up time and head space on Saturdays and have a lot fewer nights where I was in my office at 10:00 pm.
I won't say I was completely unsuccessful in that regard, but I certainly didn't break the bad habit. Anytime I went home Friday with a 100% completed sermon, I was ready to throw a parade. I just wish there had been more such parades.
Score: 2.0 out of 12
10. Walk to work.
I would estimate I walked to the church somewhere between 10 and 20 times total in 2025. Considering I drove to the church somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 times, I think we're going to have to call this one a swing and a miss.
Score: 2.0 out of 12
Score: 3.0 out of 12
12. Track my time.
The idea with this last resolution was to keep track of how many hours I was working each week and what I was doing during those hours, both for the sake of accountability and personal record-keeping. Memory is not to be trusted, so it's always good to write it down.
I was ready to give myself no credit on this one, but a closer look at my records indicates that I actually did better here than I thought I did, keeping detailed records for the first 3 months of the year and looser, more scattered notes for another 4. Admittedly, it was all pretty front-loaded to the first half of the year, but the math is the math: half credit.
Score: 3.5 out of 12
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