I'd thought of doing a "Happy New Year" Blog - well, of course; it's the beginning of the year, isn't it? Everyone's doing something like that - resolving something, promising something, giving something up or picking something else up. We write about fresh starts and all that - and it's important to wish everyone a "Happy New Year", don't you think?
Well, I wonder about that. I was quite taken with a blog written by my lovely friend, Julie recently - asking the question "What do we mean when we say 'Happy New Year'?" What are we wishing for people?
And it got me thinking further - What about what we say at the END of the previous year? I've seen several posts recently saying something like "Glad that one's over!" - "2023 can just do one!" - and, my favourite, "2023 was a bag of sh**e!"
I sort of get where people are coming from with those sentiments. Don't we all just want to draw a line in the sand, step over it and move forward, knowing that what was done and not liked is firmly behind the line and won't follow us into our new, shiny futures. But of course, life isn't like that at all. We can't really section it off, much as we want to. Even the arbitary lines between the decades (What we refer to now as the 'Big Zero' birthdays) are just that - arbituary. There is no real barrier between 29 and 30 or 59 and 60 - we just mark it like that for convenience and practical ease.
The difference between the 31st December 2023 and 1st January 2024 is only a turn of the page of a diary (or a new diary), or the sound of 12 chimes of a bell or the clicking over of a number on a tablet or laptop. We've moved forward and marked it in some way. The Earth has turned a tiny bit more towards the sun and continues on its orbit, along with the other planets and stars, around that great fiery sphere.
How can we possibly say that everything that happened between the arbitary marks we set up between one orbit and another was terrible? Or even wonderful? It wasn't, was it? Just ask yourself that and give yourself an honest answer.
Are you telling me that there wasn't one good thing that happened in that year? Of course there was - there were lots and lots of things to be happy about.
I think it's a good and necessary thing to look back and reflect - and the ending of one year and beginning of another - before it really gets going - is as good a place as any to do that.
It's part of our learning cycle - it's how we develop - how we do things better - prevent mistakes from occurring repeatedly.. However, we need to be honest - not just about what's happened - but about the part we played in the way things went. Not so we can berate ourselves, though we might want to give ourselves a ticking off - but so we can take responsibility for our actions, admit failures, see where we could do things differently and make positive changes in what we do and how we do it in future. And also to see what went well and where we found joy.
You see, I think we've got into something of a rut of believing that we should be happy most of the time - or even all the time. There's so much thrown at us toreinforce that. - The whole "You're worth it" culture - the "Get it now" beliefs - the "Must have the latest" thing. And then there's the "Let's get bladdered" mentality - a sort of desire to escape this mundane reality, because it isn't quite making us happy enough.
What's happening to us? Can we be happy? Why shouldn't we be? Don't we deserve to be? Isn't that what life is all about anyway? Being happy?
I've had cause to give the whole business of happiness a bit of thought in the past few years. Cancer is an evil thing - it robs us of the lives we want to lead. It steals today so we can't properly look forward to tomorrow.
Well, that's if you let it! I decided - after much prayer and refelection, when my cancer recurred initially, that I wasn't going to allow that to happen. Yes, it would cause me pain. Yes, it would shorten my life. But I'll be blowed if it takes away my inner joy - my deep sense of peace and security. I think back to Psalm 23 where I am assured that the Lord prepares a banqeting table for me, loaded with goodies - in the PRESENCE of my enemies. There is no room at this table for Despair, Anxiety, Fear - those enemies of my Joy - I will not give them a chair!
I could easily say that 2023 was miserable for me. I lost my hair - I had 4 months of being really sick - I had to give up ministry, cancel holidays, not go places, I couldn't even walk my own dogs for some of it. I've had to say goodbye to long-distance walking, one of my great passions - reading became hard for me. We lost my father-in-law, my cancer recurred again; my treatment made me ill.
But there were so many wonderful moments - that could only have come about because of the cancer. I made new friends - I discovered people really did love me and wanted to care for me and serve me. I talked to people in great depth. I started writing again. I finished about 20 new short stories. I wrote poetry. I spent time on holiday with friends. John and I became even closer and realised we really we were in this "in sickness and in health" business!
On reflection, I don't really think I would change a minute - I don't wish any of it away at all. Even on the worst of days, something went on that I either learned from or found some joy in. I didn't like the painful parts - and of course, I do wish it might have been possibly to bypass them - but I am here now - stronger, more resilient, I hope, and still able to smile and take joy.
I have learned most of all that joy is there all the time. Happiness is elusive and temporary, but Joy is there to be taken any time. Even now, when it is pouring with rain, it is here. I'm looking out at our garden and seeing all this wretched excess water and I just know that under the soil, busying themselves away, are the tiniest of creatures making the most of all that water - feasting on it while it's so abundantly available. That gives me a quirky sort of joy. I did not want to walk the dogs today - I got soaked in our nearby field, but I did laugh out loud at my crazy spaniel trying to catch a squirrel and coming back covered in thick black mud after skidding into a pond in the chase! And I could not help but smile to see so many green shoots already poking above the surface of the ground. Spring really IS on its away - there is always Hope, because it is always on the way. No matter now bleak it looks right now.
Funnily enough, I read today, thanks to Richard Rohr, that Carl Jung believed much suffering occurs unnecessarily because people won't accept the "legitimate suffering" that comes from being human. He was so right! Life is not easy at all. It's hard-going. But we seem to refuse to accept that. We want it to be easier. We're actually led to believe that it can be. We're simply not willing to not only want to suffer, but we want also to be happy all the time. We think we should be - like we have a right to happiness!
It has to stop, I think, if we want to find anything like an inner peace. If we want to actually stop ourselves from suffering unnnecessarily - at our own hands. My friend Julie, spoke of "Shalom" instead of wishing folk a "Happy New Year". It means that I wish you wholeness, completeness, soundness, health, safety and prosperity. To me, that sounds so much more than happiness. It's what I want for myself and it's certainly what I want for those I love - and actually for all people,
And I also wish for all of us some honest reflection as we look back on our year - a searching not only for what went wrong, because a lot of it did - but then again, life is hard, it's tough and we need to accept that. Get over it! We will get ill - people we love will die. We'll run out of money - or time - folk will hurt us. Life is painful. But, it's also liberally sprinkled with Joy - and we have the ability to find it, make it, cherish it, spread it. In fact, we are called upon to do just that. Paul, a top guy in the New Testament of the Bible, who set up loads of churches for Christ, wrote to one Church in Philippi - "Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!........And the Peace of God which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus".
As a follower in Jesus, I have found this so important for me - to purposefully and intentionally seek to rejoice. To give thanks for all that is good in my life - even the tiniest of things - and I've seen it transform my days, my very way of thinking and being .
On saying that, however, I have to admit to having a first class degree in moaning - and I very often forget to Rejoice! So if you hear me belly-aching, please give me grace and remind me of all I have to be thankful for!!
Shalom my friends, for 2024.......and Rejoice!
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