Selfie

It's hard to believe that "selfie" made the Oxford Dictionary Word of the Year. It beat out twerking!

The good news is that I'm not going to be twerking for you today. I am, however, going to post a selfie. Not the traditional kind of cell phone selfie pic; but a less conventional kind of Christmas selfie.

I've decided to give myself a Christmas present this year, one that will benefit other people as well. I know that it's a few days before Christmas, but everybody loves an early Christmas present, right?

The Christmas present that I'm giving to myself this year--my Christmas selfie--is forgiveness!
That's right, everybody gets a clean slate.
To be fair...it's not everybody; if you've earned my respect by your good character and great integrity, you get to keep that. Also to be fair...it's not exactly clean; human that I am, the past is hard to erase completely.

But here's the deal: I am carrying no grudges or bad feelings about anybody into the new year. I'm not going to say that everybody is my new friend or that I now trust all of the people that I didn't trust before, but I will give everybody the gift of a fresh start. I'm going to try to be a more forgiving person throughout the new year and figured this would be a good way, and a good time, to get started.

I realize that most of the people that might benefit from this Christmas selfie probably don't read Out of My Hat. I haven't decided if I need to tell them that I am forgiving the past and giving them a fresh start (some might not even realize they've earned my scorn and distrust), or to just do it and let my new attitude toward them be the evidence. That may vary from person to person.

I hope that you will consider that Christmas should be the season of forgiveness and fresh starts. All of humanity was given the gift of a Savior that offers forgiveness and fresh starts. Maybe you will join me and give yourself the gift of forgiving others for Christmas. Maybe we can all be more forgiving in 2014.

Merry Christmas!
John <><