my #oneword365 for 2013

I’ve never been very good with resolutions. I start with something grand and ideal and drop the task mid-January. I even tried a photo-a-day project. I got past mid-January, but it fizzled before the first of February.

This fondness for failing my resolutions has been the reason I haven’t not tended to make resolutions. In late 2011, I came across the One Word community, started by my friend, Alece.

So I decided to consider a word to shape my year for 2012. The word that came to me popped at me through the New Year’s Day sermon at Christ Church Cathedral, given by Archbishop Claude Miller, Metropolitian and Diocesan Bishop in the Anglican Communion of Canada. For me, 2011 was about faith.

It was a great challenge trying to focus on faith. My dad has a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s. I live too far away to see him daily or even weekly. It has been frustrating for me to see my dad with this disease. Dad was always a man on the go and now he is confined to the four walls of the nursing home.

Another challenge for my faith was the announcement of the end of my employment. The call centre I worked at since 2006 announced it is closing in February 2013. This was a shock to all employed, and looking back, we might have pieced together the inevitable. However, no one wanted to do so before the end was announced.

I hadn’t told anyone but I’ve been struggling with my faith and whether I truly believed in the story of faith told in the Bible, Old and New Testament. Some blogs that have sustained me this year have been Grit and Glory by Alece, Cautious Creative by Katie and the cartoons of the the Naked Pastor, David. I especially love his series of drawings, entitled Sophia.

This fall, I was watching the show Fringe. An interaction on the show was a faith blast moment. Olivia, one of the main characters, asks a lady she encounters “Why are you smiling?” The answer “because I believe. You can’t know everything.” This clicked with me. And made me realize that my faith is not in vain. I can believe without knowing everything. My task in life, my duty is to live what I say I believe. And I have already been doing that.

Faith has lead me to the place where 2013 will be time of growth. Both personal, professional and political. I don’t venture to know where 2013 will lead me but I do know that I will be working on growing my photography into a revenue-generating business. This is the personal. In my professional life, I am putting myself into my new job, so that I can be the best I can and to grow so that I will be ready when new opportunities come around. Politically, I have no idea what this means. I am working on a public advocacy project surrounding public transit. I want to see the NB NDP grow in the eyes of the public, in advance of an election in 2014.

So watch the blog throughout 2013. Watch it grow, watch me grow.