New Year's Resolutions
By Alison Ray
As we prepare in anticipation
for the New Year, I am reminded of how this time is great for taking a personal
inventory and making resolutions for improvements such as eating healthier,
meditating more often, and getting along with difficult people.
This has
remained a tradition for the past seventy years or more based on the
correspondence between Edgar Cayce and the people for whom he gave readings
which are available in the background documentation and reports of the
readings.
One woman shared her New Year's
resolutions for 1940 with Mr. Cayce. Report 464-29 documents her letter and Mr.
Cayce's response including his resolution for the New Year.
Mrs. 464: I have made two
resolutions for the New Year...no swearing or calling any one any bad names,
and when I told Bee [her daughter] she gave me a scornful look and said
"you know right well, the first time you catch sight of Mrs. Yitherington, you will forget all about
resolutions and the air will be full of brimstone." ...Mrs. Yitherington
is...somewhat of a liar and with a few screws loose here and there. She lives
next door and gets on my nerves... The sight of her is like shaking a red rag
at a bull.
So I began to take stock of
myself. Seeing that it is the time of the year to make resolutions, hoping that
by diligent practicing I could overcome my tendencies of the use of expressive
language on short time order... My greatest fear will be forgetfulness and a
throw back. I am sorry to say that I lack spiritual refinement...
To which Mr. Cayce replied:
Your New Years' resolutions are very interesting to say the least–and tho you
might under stress as Bee says skip over and let loose before you realized it.
The try is the thing—am very sure for most of us if God doesn't count our
trying-for-righteousness—we will all fall very far short—but am persuaded HE
does just that. So am sure you will find a great deal of fun also in your
experiment─ may
we call it, but am sure a lot of help will come to you for the try.
...my one New Years' resolution
is to eat whatever they set before me–without remarks as to what [I] would like
to have had—guess the Madam [Mrs. Cayce] does get tired of complaints—so here
is hoping no more from me. Don't know how long will hold out—can dream—and try
at least can't I...
Just hope you have a lot of fun
holding on to your resolution...
With all good wishes—and hoping
all the good things you have wished for come to you with the New Year.
Sincerely, Edgar Cayce
All of us at Edgar Cayce's A.R.E. wish you the very best in the New Year. May all the good things you have wished for come true.