Why is this night, of all nights, important to us?

It’s a good thing we begin a new year every year about this time, don’t you think?

If properly approached, the beginning of a new year can be beneficial to our psyche,
beneficial to our health, and beneficial to our soul.

However, as the years go by, Father Time becomes more of a caricature, and we pay less and less attention to the intention  of the season, don’t we?

Without the fol-de-rol of late night parties, New year’s Eve is of little importance to the on-going nature of our lives. 
We have no ceremony for this time of year, when a youngster may ask, “Why is this night, of all nights, important to us?” 

But, maybe we should. 
For this could be a teaching moment for all of us.

As I have noted before, most of us carry around way too much baggage.  We tend to tote pounds and pounds of grudges, animosity, resentment, and revenge, don’t we?
 
And, we know it’s unhealthy. 
Doctors tell us. 
Ministers tell us. 
Researchers tell us. 
Some friends tell us. 
Our blood pressure is affected. 
Our cholesterol is affected. 


Our heart rate is affected. 
Our mood is affected. 
Our relationships are affected. 
Our outlook is affected. 
Our immune system is affected. 
We become more prone to disease. 
We become more prone to mental disorder. 
We become more prone to grumpiness. 
And, our life is not what it could be. 
Our life is not what it should be. 
Our life is not what it is promised to be.

Dr. Bernie Siegel reminds us that there seems to be an innate desire in all humans to be reborn, to start again,
to make resolutions and changes we can live up to.

He notes that he sees evidence of this deep seeded desire
“every day in my role as a physician:
People learn they have a limited time to live, and they start their New Year behavior.
They move, change jobs, spend more time with those they love, stop worrying about what everyone else thinks of them, and start to celebrate their life. They are grateful for the time they have to enjoy life and they stop whining about what they wish had happened during the past year.”

So, he notes: we don’t need to wait for that one certain day of the year.

Dr. Siegel suggests that everyday can be the beginning of a new year.
When every evening is New Year’s Eve and every day you awaken is New Year’s Day, you are living life as it was intended.

For me, this is the message of the new year. 

As Paul reminds us in Colossians, it is time to put to death old attitudes and agendas.

Then, the new year has meaning.  
Then, the new life we are promised is closer to being fulfilled.

In this way, we nurture our soul. 
And, when our soul is tended, our health is better and our future is brighter.  
Then, and only then, can we truly welcome the new year and the days ahead. 
We know them to be the fulfillment of God’s time.

This is the day the Lord has made. 

When every evening is New Year’s Eve and every day you awaken is New Year’s Day, you are living life as it was intended

A Proclamation Failure or the Ascendancy of Wormwood

I have to say that on November 8, 2016, I experienced a crisis of faith that called into question a lifetime of teaching, leading and nurturing people to live the Christian faith.

Taking clues from the prefector of our faith, Jesus ben Joseph, whom we call The Christ, 
I have spent untold hours proclaiming his stories and message.  Through the years, the proclamation has taken many forms and ways – even using words upon occasion. 

Words have always been important to me.  Weaving words together to clearly express an idea, a concept, or a message has been a constant and major concern.

As the most openly blatant anti-Christian candidate to ever run for the office of President of the United States gained more and more support, I began to see that Wormwood’s work was finally taking hold.  (Screwtape would be so pleased.)
Evil had infiltrated American politics.

Specifically, I felt that my 47 years of work was for naught.  The word of God had not gotten through.  I have failed -  I, and my 400,000 colleagues who spend their lives proclaiming the Gospel of Christ, have failed.

The U.S. Presidential election of 2016 was a sign of proclamation failure.
That so many well-meaning people (including so many good church-going folk) were taken in by the only candidate in history to unabashedly personify anti-Christ behavior revealed a total misunderstanding of the faith that I, and thousands of colleagues, have proclaimed for so long.

Our work, my work, wasn’t heard. 
Or, possibly worse, if heard was rejected by so many of otherwise sane believers.

I had to go back and reread Scott Peck’s seminal work “People of the Lie” that he published in 1983.  Scott Peck argues that evil is alive and well in our world and exerts power in our lives.

Scott Peck affirms that even when evil seems to have taken hold (of a person or a group of people) hope and goodness always are potent antidotes.

So, I am still trying to work out what I am now to do during this time of the seeming prevalence of evil in our country.

There is a moroseness in feeling one has been a failure –  especially at communicating – which is what I have made my life’s work.

Perhaps it is not my failure; but, a nod to the power of Screwtape.  
Hate is powerful.  
Evil is alive and prevalent in our land.

Scott Peck’s work has been confirmed by the work of many in recent years.  
There is mounting evidence that goodness prevails over hate. 

So, I ease into my new “ministry” providing smiles, and thoughtful rhetoric, and hopeful messages, and empowering support, and nourishment to the faithful, and balm  to the hurting - and perhaps even a little enlightenment.