Shakespearean New Year’s Resolutions

Now, by two-headed Janus,

Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time.

• The Merchant of Venice, Act 1/Scene 1

Janus was the Roman god of beginnings and transitions and was thus often depicted as having two faces, one looking forward and the other back. The month of “January” takes its name from this deity since it is a time to look back at the past year and forward to the new one. So we do things like New Year’s Resolutions, which I think are sort of fun. (Although they do make it tough to find a treadmill open at my gym, but by early February that problem tends to solve itself.) Anyway, since Shakespeare makes frequent reference to this character, I thought I would frame my resolves for 2016 in the Bard’s language. So here goeth nothing!

1. Keep more things to myself.

Good my lord, pardon me:

Though I am bound to every act of duty,

I am not bound to that all slaves are free to.

Utter my thoughts? Why, say they are vile and false

• Othello, Act III/Scene 3

Between Facebook and meetings at work I have a tendency to shoot off my mouth because an apt phrase occurs that seems too good to waste. I resolve to remember that it is haste that makes waste, not circumspection.

2. Be more sympathetic to people in power.

Upon the king! let us our lives, our souls,

Our debts, our careful wives,

Our children and our sins lay on the king!

We must bear all. O hard condition,

Twin-born with greatness, subject to the breath

Of every fool, whose sense no more can feel

But his own wringing!

• Henry V, Act IV/Scene 1

Like Herman Melville’s narrator Ishmael, “ I abandon the glory and distinction of such offices to those who like them. For my part, I abominate all honorable respectable toils, trials, and tribulations of every kind whatsoever. It is quite as much as I can do to take care of myself, without taking care of ships, barques, brigs, schooners, and what not.” But having, at some cost, removed myself from any position of leadership, I tend to be a little hard on the folks willing to be in charge - like politicians and those in appointed office. I resolve to remind myself more often that they have a different problem than I do, and that Scripture promises them my prayers.

3. Live it up a little.

O, reason not the need: our basest beggars

Are in the poorest thing superfluous:

Allow not nature more than nature needs,

Man's life's as cheap as beast's.

• King Lear, Act 2/Scene 4

I’m cheap. I also have a pretty well-developed Puritan work ethic. And a seminary professor’s income. As a result, I tend to avoid expenditures meant just for fun. It can get a little grim. I can get a little grim. I resolve to obey more first-impulses to invest in fun.

4. Pay more attention to the spiritual.

When wilt thou leave fighting o' days and foining

o' nights, and begin to patch up thine old body for heaven?

• King Henry IV, Part 2, Act II/Scene 4

I know, I know - I’m a seminary professor and former pastor and I have a doctorate in spiritual formation; I’m supposed to be all over this stuff. But sometimes “the hand of little employment hath/the daintier sense.” (I cheated - that one’s from Hamlet.) It’s easy to start reading the classics of spiritual theology as textbooks, or stop reading them because you’ve mastered them. . .as textbooks. I resolve to re-engage with a renewed naivete.

5. Sit still.

She sat like patience on a monument.

• Twelfth Night, Act IV/Scene 2

I’ve noticed that I tend to fidget as I sit in meetings, or in church, or with friends. I’m not sure why but I think it has something to do with trying to find a comfortable position. As I’ve become aware of this habit, I’ve also found that simply sitting, with my feet flat on the floor and the curve maintained in the small of my back, is quite relaxing, and moving is a twitch, not a need. I resolve to sit still more often and for longer.