What, if any, resolutions are you setting for this New Year?

And, for bonus points:

Which, if any, resolutions did you keep for the year 2006?

A couple of weeks ago Sarah wrote a series of posts about how the time had come to begin making certain life changes. She talked about using 2007 as a sort of rebuilding year. Quitting smoking, eating better, etc.

Along those same lines, I’ve started a companion blog (Theory of Resolutions) to document my own personal journey through this rebuilding year. It’s just me–my perspective. I suppose it will be more personal. Narcissistic. It will be more of a diary than 2HB. Obviously, it won’t exactly be private…but I’m also not exactly looking for feedback. There may be some overlap between blogs when warranted.

Also, I’ve added a page to this blog where I intend to document the places we eat out, drink out, or get takeout from. Its purpose is to motivate us to eat better–to save money and eat more interestingly.

I used to vote in a retirement home. Then, at an elementary school. Now, my polling place is inside a Pentecostal church.

I recall some recent debate in the Letters to the Editor section of the Gazette, with some readers taking issue with the fact that they had to cast their ballots in a church. Others brushed off the controversy, claiming that those who had some church-state separation issues with the location of their polling place were simply being overly sensitive and making mountains out of molehills.

But a new Stanford University study suggests it may not be such a molehill after all:

After analyzing data from Arizona’s 2000 general election, the Stanford researchers found that voters were more likely to support raising the state sales tax to support education if they voted in schools. This bias remained even when results were controlled for voters’ political views and demographics. In a follow-up laboratory study, subjects were asked to vote on a number of initiatives, including California’s 2004 stem-cell-research financing proposition. Before casting a vote, each subject was primed with a picture of a school, church or generic building. Voters were less likely to support stem-cell initiatives when presented with images of a church.

Granted, we do live in a part of the country where churches are everywhere (there are at least half a dozen churches within two miles of my house), so it’s doubtful that I’ll be voting anywhere else in the near future. And when I do vote, I’ll vote in favor of stem cell research, regardless of whether I’m surrounded by crosses or football trophies.

I awoke Christmas morning with a smile on my face. The Dream Fairy had been particularly kind the night before, bestowing upon me a most delightful gift – dreams of making out with Jack White.

Little did I know at the time that I would repeatedly summon up memories of this dream throughout the next several hours. This dream would become my Happy Place for the day.

I was already deep in the throes of your typical, garden-variety holiday burnout. After two full days of trying to devote equal time to both my family and Dwight’s family, attending a church service for the first time in years, and trying to be the perfect daughter / daughter-in-law / sister / aunt, I was slowly running out of steam. And sanity.

This day, Christmas Day, would prove to be the most stressful of all. After a long morning of gift-opening (mostly by my niece and nephew) with my in-laws, Dwight and I headed over to my parents’ house for a late-morning brunch.

After we ate, we retired to the living room to watch T.V. and chat, as we usually do. My dad mentioned that there was a DVD he’d like us to see and asked my brother to retrieve it from their DVD collection. Dad’s musical tastes run toward the likes of Il Divo and Josh Groban, and he owns several of their DVD’s, so I was anticipating 45 minutes or so of schmaltzy live performance.

My brother found the requested DVD, Indescribable, and inserted it in the DVD player. Cheesy, “inspirational”-type music began to play as text appeared on the screen. I began to pick out certain words and phrases, with rapidly growing concern. “Awesome.” “My creator.” “Holy Holy Holy.” A sick feeling began to invade my insides.

This was going to be something much, much worse than Josh Groban. We’d just jumped onto the Proselytization Highway, with no exit in sight. I slammed my eyes shut and tried desperately to recall my Jack White dream. Ahhh, yes – there it was. Much better.

My fantasies were soon interrupted by the sound of crazed Christian cheering, and my attention was diverted back to the television. The scene opened on the altar of what appeared to be a typical megachurch. Louie Giglio took the stage/altar. Casually clad in a long-sleeved t-shirt and jeans, he was one of those supposedly “hip” preachers that reach the youth on their level. As for the content that was to come, it is best described by the following summary (courtesy of the NorthPoint Ministries catalog):

The heavens are telling the glory of God, and their expanse declares the work of His hands. Night after night they remind us of just how small we are, and how huge God is. Looking out into the far reaches of the Universe, we find a seemingly infinite expanse of mystery and wonder, intricately fashioned by a God of unfathomable size and power. Just a glimpse of one of the billions of visible galaxies He has formed, resizes us, shrinking us, and the world we call home, to seeming insignificance in an instant. But as tiny as we may seem, the God who knows every star by name also knows yours and mine. And in the most stunning rescue imaginable, God sent His Son to this spinning planet we call home–the Creator reconnecting us to Himself with life that never ends.

Yep, that pretty much describes Indescribable.

We patiently sat through 45 minutes of this decidedly unhip man showing us pictures taken by the Hubble Telescope and trying his darndest to convince us that because the universe is so fantastically exotic and infinite, the only possible conclusion we can draw is that God did it. And how awesome (I hate when Christian preachers use the word “awesome”) is it that in all this vastness, God sent his Son here. For us. We were shown photos of some far-off galaxy or nebula vaguely resembling a human eye, and it was obvious what we were to see – look, that’s God’s eye, looking down upon His creations! Isn’t it awesome?

MyCn18 – Credits: Raghvendra Sahai and John Trauger (JPL), the WFPC2 science team, and NASA

We were shown another photo of a far-off galaxy – in the center of the vast swirls, there were what appeared to be to slightly uneven lines bisecting one another. Again, it was obvious what pattern we were supposed to see in this cosmic chaos – a cross. What more evidence is needed? It’s all so – awesome!

M51 – Credit: H. Ford (JHU/STScI), the Faint Object Spectrograph IDT, and NASA

Making out with Jack White…making out with Jack White…making out with Jack White…

When this horror finally ended, and I was fighting back tears of frustration, my mom asked what we thought. I was alone, as Dwight had already fled for the safety of the bathroom.

“It was, umm, interesting,” I choked out.

“Interesting?” she replied, and left the room.

Clearly not the response she was hoping for. But what should I have said instead? That this entire presentation was one big exercise in circular reasoning? Should I have pointed out the idiocy of the assumption that because we live in an infinite and complex universe, then therefore, God exists? Should I have asked why the probability of life on other planets was never mentioned once? Should I have said what I was really thinking – that this entire belief, that God only chose this one little blue planet (and that upon that one little blue planet, He only chose Christians) is astoundingly narcissistic?

Dwight and I got our things together, said goodbye to my family, and bolted. As we headed home, I lit a cigarette and contemplated whether or not to send my family a copy of the Richard Dawkins documentary. If I had to sit quietly and accommodatingly through this, then they should have to sit through The Root of all Evil. It’s only fair.

This afternoon, the DVD documentary Earthlings was loaned to me. This is the animal rights documentary, not the Star Trek one. If it were the latter, my dilemma would be a much simpler one. Klingon, or no. As it stands, I’m not sure whether I want to, or should, watch the other film.

You see, I was given a disclaimer when the DVD was given to me: if you’re serious about ever eating meat again, you may not want to watch this.

Apparently, this Joaquin Phoenix narrated film purports to reveal “mankind’s complete economic dependence on animals raised for pets, food, clothing, entertainment and scientific research.” It is further described as “by far the most comprehensive documentary ever produced on the correlation between nature, animals and human economic interests.”

Disturbing imagery is one thing. I can handle that. I sort of need to see disturbing images of animal cruelty. It gives activism a sense of purpose. To look away accomplishes nothing. I think that in this unfarmed community that many of us have grown up in–where meat suddenly appears in cellophane wrap at the grocery store–we have taken our food sources far too much for granted. Out of sight, out of mind. For this reason, because I’ve never chopped off the head of a chicken nor seen a cow slaughtered, I need to expose myself to Nutritional Reality.

I’m not one who thinks animals are akin to people. Sure, I have my dogs. I love them to death. And, I probably anthropomorphize way too much. But, in the end, animals are, in part, a food source. That’s simply the way of nature. Still, I think as humans, we ought to treat animals with respect. They are more than disposable. And, just because they may be a food source, doesn’t mean they are ours to do with as we please. The line is sometimes blurry, but there is a distinction between respectable omnivorous behaviour (and pet ownership) and animal cruelty.

If anything, I’m woried this documentary will be biased too much towards the “animals are our equals” crowd. The crowd whose argument is that because animals feel pain, none should ever be harmed–and that there is not distinction at all between respectfully eating meat and animal cruelty. So far, I can’t find any overt link between this film and PETA, except for the fact that PETA gave this film an award and its narrator is a supporter. PETA is often an easy target (and often rightfully so). But, it doesn’t mean their cause is devoid of any authority whatsoever. As with everything, people should maintain a certain level of skepticism. But, even more than any sort of PETA connection, the most worrying thing is the Harrelson connection. Woody Harrelson has a blurb on the front cover extolling the virtues of the film his brother, Brett, acts as an executive producer on. I’m wary of the Harrelson connection after seeing the dubious documentary Go Further.

But, I don’t want to blow it off because it may be biased towards one particular viewpoint. If I discounted everything because it leaned in a particular direction, I would have nothing in my life. So, apparently I have convinced myself to go ahead and watch it (with a healthy dose of skepticism…along with a couple of cigarettes and a beer to dull any unexpected emotional impact). I’ll let you know how it goes.

It can’t be any worse than the hideous documentary propaganda film, Indescribable, that Sarah and I were exposed to on Christmas Day.