The New Year will arrive tonight in the glow of a full moon. It like the year closing, has reached completion. Round and gravid with light, it pours out the gift of its labors for all to see, a luminous reminder of the purpose and beauty of our lives as the year slips away. This year is over, but the moon's work and ours, goes on. Ahead of us in the night stretches a vast sky of opportunity, waiting with the stars, for our light. Shine on.

 

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

 

Beautiful are the youth

whose rich emotions flash and burn,

whose lithe bodies filled with energy and grace

sway in their happy dance of life;

and beautiful likewise are the mature

who have learned compassion and patience,

charity and wisdom,

though they be rarer far than beautiful youth.

But most beautiful and most rare is a gracious old age

which has drawn from life the skill to take its varied strands:

the harsh advance of age, the pang of grief,

the passing of dear friends, the loss of strength,

and with fresh insight weave them

into a rich and gracious pattern all its own.

This is the greatest skill of all,

to take the bitter with the sweet and make it beautiful,

to take the whole of life in all its moods,

its strengths and weaknesses,

and of the whole make one great and celestial harmony.

Robert Terry Weston

"What are we here for?" Annie Dillard asks in The Writing Life. "Proper chorum, the monks say: for the sake of the choir."

What makes a good life? What is the value in trying to live one? Everywhere we look there are people struggling mightily to ensure only their version is the only one allowed. The beautiful balance of our natural world has been threatened because we have been thoughtless and selfish in how we have built our nests. The thrall of political power has distanced us from the vast numbers of people who sleep in the dust and have only despair for their lives. There is so much heartache. But could it be that these and countless others reasons like them are why a good life is so valuable? Could all this wrestling with each other be how we build one? Change in any form can only be built with the hearts and minds of everyday people. Generals and Kings, Amahs, Presidents, leaders, warlords and bosses are nothing without them. We are the only tool they have. Sweeping events in life may seem to arrive in one splendid moment, but with a closer look the brilliance of change good or bad, is composed of the lives of individuals. This year has been used up. Worn and frayed it is being gratefully ushered out by many of us. But before we close the door forever, perhaps we could pause just a moment to gather up from the tatters all the good stuff: the small kindnesses, the acts of compassion and unconditional love, the belly laughs, audacity, art and music and poetry and literature—all the boundless blessings of a good life our world so desperately needs. The New Year is arriving and we have important work to do.

"You don't get to choose how you're going to die. Or when. You can only decide how you are going to live. Now." Joan Baez

When we consider changes we might like to make in our lives in the coming year, not very many of us will be trying to include more risk. Most likely we will be doing the opposite by anticipating and making plans for as many different outcomes as we can. That makes good sense. Risk does have elements of exposure and vulnerability which are not always in our best interests. Sometimes though in trying to eliminate as much risk as we can, we forget that not all forms of exposure and vulnerability are bad. Vulnerability can dazzle us by widening our capacity for delight; exposure is the adventurer leading us to new opportunities. Both are invitations to relax our control and open up to liveliness. Next year when we are faced with a leap and are hovering on the edge trying to decide if we should risk it, we might want to remember that too little risk can create a lot of regret.

 

 

 

 

" The only way to tame your fears is to feel the rocky motion." Vonda Shepherd, 100 Tears Away

Fear is the master of deception. It has countless disguises that make it difficult to recognize its presence in our decision making. But the one it is best at using is the ability to make us believe it is a force greater than ourselves and beyond our control. We humans have a tendency to be far more willing to notice when that happens in everybody else before we take a look at ourselves. The courageous part is to look inward with tenderness and compassion at our own lives to see where we have done the same. The more curious and interested we are in why we fear the more we loosen its grip on us. And close on the heels of 'why' is 'what if'. As soon as we allow ourselves to imagine surviving what we fear the balance of power shifts back to us, we gain strength and courage—not from any force of will but through the power of love. A new year is always full of the unknown. It is easy to feel frightened and anxious about what may come to us. Perhaps that is the time it is most important to remember the power of a loving gaze.

"The biggest human temptation is to settle for too little." Thomas Merton

We've all had to settle at some point in our lives for countless reasons, which even if we now regret, at the time seemed worthy. Living exacts a toll on everyone and settling is one of them. Sometimes it's just plain easier, or the situation didn't seem to merit the effort, to give up what we wanted. It's a bit like weeding—there are always a few we overlook. But if we give up weeding altogether before long our yards are no longer recognizable. It's not a personal crisis to have a few weeds in our lives—in fact it's inevitable. The lesson for us as we move thoughtfully into a new year is to not be tempted into letting them take over because we have convinced ourself is not worth the effort.Allowing time to figure out what we truly desire helps us create a life that doesn't feel overwhelming and out of control but nourishing and supporting. We each have hopes and dreams that we should never settle on. Because if we do it means we have convinced ourselves that what our heart wants no longer matters and the weeds can have our life.That is a crisis.

 

 

"We have what we seek, it is there all the time, and if we give it time, it will make itself known to us." Thomas Merton

The last days of the year have a wonderful ease to them. For many of us, this is a natural time for reflection about the closing year and what we hope for the one to come. The gifts of this ritual are a lot like cleaning out the garage. All year long we've stacked up the things we didn't have the time to properly put away, telling ourselves 'we'll get to it' later. By now, there is hardly room for the car. And while we dread the cleaning out, when the Saturday arrives and we finally tackle the heaps, it turns out to be an energizing experience. We discover events we thought would be so important, really weren't in the end and how ones that seemed insignificant, became profound. By gently and purposefully remembering, we honor the hurtful times so we can integrate them in a way that helps them heal and allow the tender and joyous memories to restore us. Sorting through the past year increases our discernment and wisdom and creates an opportunity to see where we have or haven't grown and changed. We gain perspective about life and our place in it. But perhaps one of the greatest gifts is afterwards when we experience the same sense of completion and accomplishment about our lives that we have when we survey our clean swept garage. We are ready for a fresh start.

"Who could be so lucky? Who comes to a lake for water and sees the reflection of moon?"

Rumi

 

God is always with us-

when the waters recede, when we wait and when they return.
"What we live for, hope for, pray for, comes as a gift."
Christmas Blessings