Press On

At the family farm in Indiana.

A new year. Everything lies fresh before us.

Where will the journey through 2013 take us?

I'm personally glad to put 2012 behind me and think about new and fresh opportunities ahead. 2012 was a pretty heavy year across the globe:  the effects of stressful economic times; grievous news from places like Sandy Hook, Benghazi, the Congo; political clashes at home and abroad; stories of courage under fire like Malala Yousafzai, or our service personnel in Afghanistan and Iraq; weather challenges like Superstorm Sandy, Typhon Bopha in the Philippines, drought across the US breadbasket, the West African Sahel drought and ensuing hunger crisis. And that is only a small tip of the iceberg. My own year started with the death of my mom and followed with other smaller, yet stretching circumstances in my immediate family.

The forward look is really about hope. Hope that peace will descend like a dove on our lives, on the lives of those we love, and on the world. Hope that good seed sown in the past will sprout or even bear fruit. Hope that the wrinkles and foibles of the past will lie dormant, forgotten and forgiven. Hope that our eyes and hearts will know what it means to look ahead with the gentle glance, the flowering of joy at the corners of our eyes.


In his Christmas Day message, Pope Benedict referred to a Psalm that I've reflected on this past year also. He says in part:

In this Year of Faith, I express my Christmas greetings and good wishes in these words taken from one of the Psalms: "Truth has sprung out of the earth". Actually, in the text of the Psalm, these words are in the future: "Kindness and truth shall meet; / justice and peace shall kiss. / Truth shall spring out of the earth, /and justice shall look down from heaven. / The Lord himself will give his benefits; / our land shall yield its increase. / Justice shall walk before him, / and salvation, along the way of his steps" (Ps 85:11-14).

Today these prophetic words have been fulfilled! In Jesus, born in Bethlehem of the Virgin Mary, kindness and truth do indeed meet; justice and peace have kissed; truth has sprung out of the earth and justice has looked down from heaven. Saint Augustine explains with admirable brevity: "What is truth? The Son of God. What is the earth? The flesh. Ask whence Christ has been born, and you will see that truth has sprung out of the earth . truth has been born of the Virgin Mary" (En. in Ps. 84:13). And in a Christmas sermon he says that "in this yearly feast we celebrate that day when the prophecy was fulfilled: `truth shall spring out of the earth, and justice shall look down from heaven'. The Truth, which is in the bosom of the Father has sprung out of the earth, to be in the womb of a mother too. The Truth which rules the whole world has sprung out of the earth, to be held in the arms of a woman ... The Truth which heaven cannot contain has sprung out of the earth, to be laid in a manger. For whose benefit did so lofty a God become so lowly? Certainly not for his own, but for our great benefit, if we believe" (Sermones, 185, 1).

"If we believe". Here we see the power of faith! God has done everything; he has done the impossible: he was made flesh. His all-powerful love has accomplished something which surpasses all human understanding: the Infinite has become a child, has entered the human family. And yet, this same God cannot enter my heart unless I open the door to him. Porta fidei! The door of faith! We could be frightened by this, our inverse omnipotence. This human ability to be closed to God can make us fearful. But see the reality which chases away this gloomy thought, the hope that conquers fear: truth has sprung up! God is born! "The earth has yielded its fruits" (Ps 67:7). Yes, there is a good earth, a healthy earth, an earth freed of all selfishness and all lack of openness. In this world there is a good soil which God has prepared, that he might come to dwell among us. A dwelling place for his presence in the world. This good earth exists, and today too, in 2012, from this earth truth has sprung up! Consequently, there is hope in the world, a hope in which we can trust, even at the most difficult times and in the most difficult situations. Truth has sprung up, bringing kindness, justice and peace.

In May of 2000 when my son graduated from high school, he gave a short meditation at the Baccalaureate Service at Westminster Presbyterian Church. Of course, as a mom, I was proud to see him standing at the church pulpit in his graduation suit, speaking with such conviction and eloquence. I still remember him reading from Philippians 3 and saying these were words he wanted to take with him as sort of mantra throughout his life. They've stuck with me too, often hearing them in his voice:

But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. ⁸ What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ ⁹ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. ¹⁰ I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, ¹¹ and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
 
¹² Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. ¹³ Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, ¹⁴ I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Press on. Forget what is behind. That's really what is behind all virtuous and helpful goals or resolutions for the New Year---right priorities and values, letting go, moving forward.

The secret of getting things

done is to act.                Dante

My grandson. Children know what it means to be alive in the moment!

Wrapped up in all of these noble sentiments is the art (and I might add pleasure) of enjoying life, being fully, robustly present in the moment. The longer I live on God's good earth, the more I realize that to be the key to life. As much as I have plans, ideals, goals for 2013 spinning in my head and listed in my journal, the art of being fully alive at this moment is the richest soil in which all the rest can grow. Emmanuel, the other name for Jesus, means "God with us." Here. Today. In this moment, filling it with Truth, Kindness, Peace, Justice, and Joy.

Blessings to all for true peace and joy in 2013.

~ ~ ~

Adrian and Dad Go Sledding. A video of my son and grandson with CONVERSATION, a movement from a Piano Quartet I wrote in 2010, "Wonderland Suite."