Every Chritmas day the first box under the tree that is opened is a gift given the previous year to Jesus. In it sits numerous bits of scrap paper upon which is written a promise we each desire to make to Christ in the coming year. Kind of a spiritual new years resolution made on Christmas day. We talk about how we felt about the promises made last year and if we grew in this area/kept the promise. Then we discuss what we might like to offer to Jesus in the next year. Some are simple one word kind of things, some are more complex…well, how complex can a 3 year old be? But it has been a real treat watching them focus on this before the rampage of opening and giving their gifts.
This year I felt the conviction to ‘NOTICE’, that’s all I put on my paper in the box for 2005. A goal for my year if you like. I don’t do goal setting all that well, any more complicated than a one word statement I get lost.
To me ‘NOTICE’ takes in so much, but it is captured by the following poem by RD Laing titled “Knots”.
Are You Blind?
The range of what we think and do
is limited by what we fail to notice.
And because we fail to notice
that we fail to notice
there is little we can do
to change
until we notice
how failing to notice
shapes our thoughts and deeds.
No Guarantees 
Perhaps it’s not that we fail to notice. Maybe we choose not to notice and we fail because we don’t change.