New Year's Day, 2008

A cold wind whips around the corners of the house and gives voice to the morning. The sky clouds and clears and clouds again, and snow is predicted for later this evening. Dismal headlines from the world at large prove that bad news knows no renewal in a New Year's Day. Here on my little postage stamp of earth only the weather seems unsettled and threatening, but I know that, like the weather, life for communities and individuals can change between one breath and the next. A jet can explode into a building. A father and husband can die without warning while fixing the vacuum cleaner at the church or while sleeping in what for all the world seems like just another November night. At some level, conscious or subconscious, we all live in fear and dread of such events.

Then again, a local team can win the championship, or a local family in need can find all its needs fulfilled by strangers. Hugs come from friends. A baby granddaughter smiles. A favorite song comes on the radio. A wonderful meal spreads across a table. The long winter night passes in safety and rest.

Even though the midnight hour through which we pass from one year to the next is a somewhat arbitrary human construction, it still gets me, still sends me reeling into reflections about this world and my life.

So, 2008 looms ahead of me. The questions that 2007 has raised--my own personal questions--might or might not be answered during the coming 12 months. I'll keep my eyes and ears and mind and soul open for whatever itimations God might have for me, intimations in whatever form--the clanging gong or still small voice. Of course, such openness requires a good bit of focus from me, which means that I need to control the distractions that always seem to be trying to loosen the valves of my attention (as Emily Dickinson might put it). I know what my distractions are, and I'm aware that they are, in fact, distractions, thorns in my flesh. The question is whether or not I'm ready or even able to remove them; help is available, but I have to be willing not only to ask for it but to accept it.

In the meantime, I'll write what I can. This blog helps tremendously. It scratches the itch, and I'm thankful for that. As this year progresses, I look forward to finding more time and focus to do both what I must and what I want.

To any and all who read this, Happy New Year's to you and yours, and may you do what you must and what you want and, what's more, I think, be who you must and who you want in the coming year.

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