Charles E. "Chuck" Maier, 33°
489 Jasmine Street, Laguna Beach, Calif. 92651–1615

I have always appreciated high drama. Dad told me I came from my mother at birth with vivid red hair, face to match, yelling and screaming. In short, it was high drama, and I was the center of attention. At the time of his passing in 1963, Dad was still saying, with a twinkle in his eye, that he had seen little improvement in me.

Traditionally, New Year's Day has been high drama for me. I would make my resolutions with a flair and commit to keeping them. I would even translate them into Greek or Latin. This seemed to give them more dignity and power. As a young minister, I once came close to sharing my New Year's resolutions with the congregation, from the pulpit, at Sunday worship. I have been in need of reformation and improvement all of my life, but in the past I wanted to do it on the wide screen with six-track stereophonic sound using Charlton Heston on the voice-over. Possibly, you have done grand things like this yourselves. I have known families who compose their resolutions, share them in a gathering, and then ceremoniously throw them into a roaring fire. High drama, indeed!

Now, however, I have come to believe that we make lists at New Year's because we feel we flunked Santa's naughty-or-nice list at Christmas. Even if we have sufficient material things in our lives, we still hunger for improvement in ourselves, and we dare to hope something, our families or some guiding force, will help us do better during the coming year. Thus, we continue to make lists and pray for self-reformation.

When I came back from the National Missions in the middle 1960s, I saw a plethora of bumper stickers. Three have become parts of my life: "Live in the now," "Keep it simple," and "Today is the first day of the rest of your life." By keeping things simple and living one day at a time, there is little need for New Year's resolutions. A prayer in the morning for guidance and a prayer of thanks in the evening, with a little time for taking stock, make for humble, not high, drama, but for real growth. In truth, my grand resolutions of the past were largely forgotten by January 15th. A daily inventory may not be as much fun, but it keeps the aircraft of my life trimmed and flying into an eternal sunrise.

Nowadays, when my friends ask, "What about your New Year's resolutions?" I smile and exclaim, "New Year's resolutions? Bah, humbug!"

Charles E. Maier was a U.S. Marine during the Korean War and is a veteran of the Chosin Reservoir Campaign and a member of the Chosin Few. Raised in 1954 by Laguna Beach Lodge No. 672, he is the founding Chaplain of Orange County Daylight Lodge No. 833 and Irvine Lodge No. 841. Since 1995, he has served as Grand Prelate of the Grand Commandery, York Rite, California. He was Grand Chaplain of the Grand Lodge of California, 1987–88. After graduating from a major seminary in 1960, Father Maier served as a missioner with the Navajo Nation in Arizona and as a pastor in small parish development in California. In 1980, he was called into the hospital ministry as a chaplain and therapist, working with alcoholism and substance-abuse patients. He began active retirement in January 2000.