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Of course, the new year begins with Advent for us Christians, but there is no doubt that the changing of the date on the 1st of January reminds us of the way the newness of time creeps up on us and the old slips away as well. We mark a transition by marking this day, a transition from unfulfilled promises, perhaps, to a time of new possibilities and potentiality. We will spend a bit of time getting used to writing a new date on our journal pages (or our checks!) and perhaps we will also recognize that living is about negotiating this ongoing never-ending transition well. Though we may have landed in a new year, and though we may quickly become used to writing that new number whenever necessary, we must not forget that time continues to move around, in, and through us, and we do the same with it. There is no real stopping place in time and no actual destination; there is only the journey.
So, today I renew my commitment to this journey and to valuing the journey over the destination. I am grateful (SO grateful!!) for those who accompany me, and who allow me to accompany them as well! I pray for and celebrate all of you. Meanwhile, we move into a Jubilee Year of Hope in the Church! This focus is rich and sustaining, and also very challenging because it promises not just times of light and increased life, but of darkness and loss as well. Resurrection is real and grounds our hope, but we don't experience resurrection without suffering and death. Someone reminded me that a year of hope also means a year of courage, so I pray that we each may find all the courage we need to negotiate this piece of our journey and live it well!! I am also reminded that David Whyte says the following about courage:
Courage is the measure of our heartfelt participation with life, with another, with a community, a work, a future. To be courageous is not necessarily to go anywhere or do anything except to make conscious those things we already feel deeply and then to live through the unending vulnerabilities of those consequences. To be courageous is to seat our feelings deeply in the body and in the world: to live up to and into the necessities of relationships that often already exist, with things we care deeply about. . .. To be courageous is to stay close to the way we are made. (Consolations, excerpt pp 49-50)
May the blessings of our God touch each and all of us with his sustaining love and empower us with his presence as Emmanuel!! All good wishes for a genuinely happy new year!
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