By Sister Mary Scholastica, O.C.D.
By the time you read this, we will be more than a few weeks into the new year, 2024. How has the new year been treating you? A good friend asked me this very same question eight days into the year and it gave me pause to consider my state of being. How is the new year treating me? How am I treating the new year?
Let’s list some of the stress and pressures a new year can bring: expectations, resolutions (probably old ones packaged in a new way), commitments, renewed resolve often followed by unrealistic expectations, broken resolutions, unkept commitments, weakened resolve. There’s something about not wanting to sully a clean slate. And after our first smudge, we pick up the slate less and less because it doesn’t feel the way we’d like it to feel, it didn’t go the way we planned, it’s not as clean looking.
In answer to the question: ‘how is the new year treating me?’ – if I believe that God is truly in every present moment and forming us with the people He sends our way and the circumstances we find ourselves in, then the new year would be treating us well. If we are indeed viewing it from this lens, the lens of eternity, we would see all things as coming from the hands of a provident, loving Father Who seeks our good.
The question of how we are treating the new year might be the question for our consideration at this time. How are WE treating the new year?
Our current world situation, the unknown of 2024, the pervasive spirit of uncertainty that surrounds us, the insecurity and instability we feel deeply, the fears we keep at bay. It’s almost like we’re waiting for something catastrophic to happen. Before it used to be the “something” that happened to “someone out there”. But now, the catastrophes seem to be creeping in closer and closer and impacting those we know and love, even ourselves. So back to the question: ‘how are we treating the new year?’ There is only one way to move forward when fears of the unknown seem to anchor us downward, and that is to live today well.
There is a great urgency to live today well because the clock of life keeps ticking. We only have this one chance at life. This one chance may be comprised of 40, 50, or 90 years. Regardless of the number, it’s not that long of a time. And to drill down even further, it’s made up of a lot of yesterdays and todays. Our yesterdays inform and form our todays. Our todays inform and form our tomorrows. This is why TODAY is so important. Today, what is the Lord asking of us? How are we approaching all that this day holds? Some things we know because it’s already calendared in. Other moments are filled with unexpected encounters we might have, commitments we keep or don’t keep to ourselves and others, time we give to the Lord and our loved ones, time we waste. Today.
How will you live today well?
I have yet to encounter someone who is 100% healthy on all levels. Everyone struggles in some way. And most likely, all of us struggle with some semblance of being unhealthy physically, spiritually, mentally and/or emotionally. The work of new beginnings, a new year is often geared towards becoming healthier in all or some of these facets of who we are as a person. Our days are comprised of moments that become habits that move us in and out of healthy or unhealthy spaces. Because who we are and how we show up makes a difference in this world for good or ill, this work of genuine self-care is essential to the light of Christ burning a bit more brightly in our world today. It’s part of the daily dying to self, the renewal of the mind, the picking up our cross. God uses our struggles to fashion the person He is calling us to be. We are made in His image and likeness and the more that we can order ourselves from within, we become more and more united with the One Who dwells within us. As we struggle through the moments of the day, trying to choose rightly, for health, wholeness and holiness, don’t give up. It’s that we’re showing up, engaging in the battle and trying every day to rise up and try again. It’s this cycle of showing up, engaging whole-heartedly, falling and getting back up, with the help of God’s grace that brings us to the end of our lives grateful that our new years and new beginnings helped us to accentuate our smudges and ink stains into a distinct pattern particular to us. It’s our own beautiful story that is only fully told at the end of our lives. Every smudge tells a part of our story. And because we never gave up, the Artist used the smudges to somehow connect one part of our story to another and to another and this in ways only known to God, links to the stories of thousands of others in this world. It’s a mystery, really.
So today, live it the best you can. Show up, be present, receive, give, surrender all aspects of the day into the Lord’s hands and end the day in peace knowing that your tomorrow is just a bit richer because your ink stain on the paper from yesterday ended up being transformed into a beautiful image that only God could draw. The good Lord most definitely writes straight with crooked lines and turns smudges into works of art. Thank God for God!
