Resolve

Around the world there are so many ways to celebrate a new year – the Chinese New Year, the Persian New Year, the Arabic New Year, and the new year celebrated around the world on January 1.

In the midst of all the predictions and energy and glitter is a new way to celebrate: Resolution ’12. This web-based project, begun last year by the Rev. Charles L. Howard, Penn’s own university chaplain, encourages people to make New Year’s resolutions that are in the service of others.

“We were trying to experiment with how we could challenge people to put more good out there in the world,” Rev. Howard said.

I have added my resolution at www.resolution12.org, and I invite you to do the same. I encourage you to think in terms of community, of civic engagement, of global connections. As Pulitzer Prize-winner Ellen Goodman poignantly wrote:

“We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives … not looking for flaws, but for potential.”

That potential could be in your resolution, or in mine, or in the resolve of someone we never have met. It could start with Resolution ’12.