For whatever reason, however, I’m feeling a bit different this year.

Maybe it’s having become a father and all the ways I could be better at it. Maybe it’s a new season of ministry at the church. Maybe it’s a renewed focus on some research I’ve been doing.

For whatever reason, I’m feeling like this New Year is a gift.

I can’t help but think of Daniel Pinchbeck’s mind bending book 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, in which he describes the Mayan winged-snake being as a unity of heaven and earth. Though I got a little lost in some of his examinations of alien life forms and hallucinogenic drugs, I couldn’t help but appreciate the connection between the ancient Mayans’ hopes for this heavenly/earthly creature and my own understanding of Jesus’ incarnation.

This Quetzalcoatl, it was believed, wouldn’t herald the end of the world as much a new beginning. My own religious commitment causes me to pray and weep for the same:

And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” (Revelation 21.5, NASB)

So, I’ll be posting on a few resolutions in the coming days, if only to help myself work out why I’m drawn to them. Until then, Woody Guthrie’s rather commendable resolutions for 1942 (via nevermindthebricolage):

And, of course, Death Cab for Cutie: