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A Challenge From Section 11 -
Make a 2006 M.E. New Years Resolution!

Lesley Bradley

It’s a tradition… most of us make them, some of us forget them, a few of us keep them. New Years Resolutions! This is the perfect time to reflect on the changes we want to make in our lives.

Did you know that the tradition of making a resolution at the beginning of each New Year dates back to the early Babylonians? The Babylonians believed that what a person does on the first day of the New Year will affect him or her throughout the year. The early Babylonian's most popular resolution was to return borrowed farm equipment. In the US, the most common resolutions support good health, diet, exercise, or being more organized.

The challenge from Section 11… make a 2006 M.E. New Years Resolution! The obvious suggestion would be to commit to daily dialoguing (if you’re not already doing that). But how about some others:

• Resolve to include at least one spiritually-focused dialogue question each week.
• Resolve to begin couple prayer.
• Resolve to dialogue during primetime (not late night) hours each day.
• Resolve to select your next day’s question when you dialogue each evening.
• Resolve to include a family dialogue once each week.
• Resolve to issue a dialogue challenge to another couple or community or zone or section!
• Resolve to organize a Light Circle (a six-week opportunity to develop intimacy at the personal, couple, spiritual and community level)
• Resolve to support other community couples by asking, “How is your dialogue?”
• Resolve to include a suggested dialogue question with each M.E. e-mail.
• Resolve to make an “anniversary” weekend.
• Resolve to have a dialogue date at least weekly (or monthly)…take your books to your favorite coffee shop or restaurant!
• Resolve to invite at least one (or two or three) couple(s) to do an M.E. Weekend
• Resolve to attend your section’s next convention and begin the planning now
• Resolve to participate as an M.E. couple in other ministries in your parish (maybe teaching CCD or working bingo)
• Resolve to wear your M.E. polo shirts to Sunday Mass at least once each month
• Resolve to write a pulpit talk and become part of the team that invites from the pulpit

That’s just a few suggestions. You can surely think of so many more. Pick one, mark the calendar for January 30, 2006, and see how you’re doing. You may need to re-resolve, but that’s okay, too. Enjoy the process, the increased intimacy, and the focus you and your spouse will be placing on your sacrament.

Section 11 wishes its Marriage Encounter family a blessed 2006!

Click here for a printable version (PDF, 7KB)