life on the fence: final thoughts

the year is coming to a close. reflection is something i find great satisfaction in, but something that i don't spend nearly enough time doing. i used to be really big into new years resolutions. it was the manifestation of my goal-setting, overly analytical right brain. i kind of put off resolutions in 2007. in some ways, i think i'm paying the price for that. looking back now, i'm not really sure what i accomplished this past year. i can pinpoint highlights, things i feel good about, but on a personal or professional level, i'm having trouble identifying anything truly significant that i moved through, overcame, accomplished, or otherwise gained momentum on.

i hope not to have that same sense of fogginess next december. i return to my resolutionary process, which includes one goal in five areas of my life: financial, professional, spiritual, physical, and relational. i'll set them in writing and figure out a way to measure if i accomplished them or not. then i'll set out on a journey - the same one i do each january 1 - to be more diligent and persistent about it than i have been in the past. hopefully this time i'll be able to press beyond that mid-february lull.

on another note, i recently read an article that talked about the scientific study of morality and where it originates in the brain. it was a very interesting read. throughout it though, i was less impressed with the scientific advances that allow us to pinpoint exactly how the brain reacts when we are posed with moral choices than i was with the implication that morality is, at some level, innate in all of us. whether we choose to make the right choices or not is overshadowed by the implications of sin and our default tendency to be drawn toward poor decisions. however, the idea that we're equipped with the ability to choose wisely is one that apparently extends beyond mere christianity and into the world of scientific theory. is it the evolutionary process exhibiting itself, or just further evidence of God's craftmanship in our complexity? i choose the latter.

"for grossly imperfect creatures like us, morality may be the steepest of all developmental mountains. our opposable thumbs and big brains gave us the tools to dominate the planet, but wisdom comes more slowly than physical hardware. we surely have a lot of killing and savagery ahead of us before we fully civilize ourselves. the hope - a realistic one, perhaps - is that the struggles still to come are fewer than those left behind."
- excerpt from the article "what makes us moral" (time magazine, dec. 3, 2007)