"How can I make perfect mashed potatoes?"

Most newspaper headlines are rife with themes of "Renewal" "New Hope for the New Year" "Positive resolutions for the New Year" etc. etc. Did you know that there are over 21 million other references to New Year's Resolutions on the Web? All that being said, I have to applaud the Rhinelander Daily News (Wisconsin) for getting down to the everyday with the Community section's article on "How can I make perfect mashed potatoes?" What a bold, radical and refreshing headline for the New Year!!

I am ready for a new refreshing twist on New Year's resolutions. What resolutions come down to is basically how to be better. See the ten top resolutions for the year. These include:

• I will be kinder.
• I will lose this weight.
• I will accomplish my goals.
• (and, I am sure, some where at the very bottom of the list) I will make perfect mashed potatoes.

Been there. Done that. This year, doing resolutions seems to me to be just another list. Lists, once the backbone of my daily activities, have slowly lost their influence with me.

At one time, lists gave me a way to see who I am by what I do. I loved checking off the list and going to bed at night feeling a sense of accomplishment.

After having an incredibly full schedule in the last seven years, a never-ending list of things needing to be accomplished was just depressing. Today, my time is purely mine to determine what needs to be done and lists are total fabrications. So, lists are on their way out. They have been replaced in part with more active listening and letting inspiration move me forward toward an accomplishment or insight.

I am practicing living more simply and more closely to my prayer.

My new backbone -- the only thing on my "list" for this new year is to praise God. That's all.

If this sounds a little flaky, consider the powerful impulse of praise. It opens thought to an omnipotent force of good (God), it protects you ( there is no room for evil thoughts to grow in a consciousness filled with the awareness of good), it establishes you (praise for God means you recognize God and your ability to sing His/Her praise!), it purifies thought (singing praise uplifts and keeps going higher; the purity of happiness and joy are self-creative qualities that build on themselves and burn away any impurities).

Praise for God does more good things:

• It makes you kinder and more thoughtful
• You start to glorify God in your body
• Your accomplishments are done with more ease and grace because your motive for accomplishing anything is to glorify God
• AND you are perfectly nourished in the awareness of your tender, nurturing relationship to God who is all good. As a result, you can probably make the most perfect mashed potatoes!

Have a blessed gratitude-enriched New Year, all!

Praise ye the Lord: for it is good to sing praises unto our God; for it is pleasant; and praise is comely. (From Psalms 147 - the Song of David)

Kim




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