Three very simple things I’ve been thinking
about today, which if we let them search our hearts may speak deeply to us.
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| (Image from www.afar.com) |
First, in the year ahead, may we be present
in the present. So often we are caught up in so many distractions - in memories
and dreams, in the sheer busy-ness of life - that we are not present to life, to other
people, or to the God whose love constantly seeks to nudge us awake. Nor are we present to our true selves – in fact,
often our distracted busy-ness is a way of escaping from what our deepest
selves are telling us.
We know we need to change, and so we make New Year
resolutions, but these usually fail, because they come from the head down,
rather than rising from our hearts. We will only change if we recognize our
desperate need of change, and to do that we must listen to our deepest selves,
and to the God who speaks to us there. The coming days may bring hard times.
But it’s in the hard times that, if we are truly present in the present, we
learn our need of change, and reach out to the creative finger of God.
Secondly, in the year ahead may we embrace
the future in faith, hope and trust in God. May we be open to what the year
holds, even when some of our dreams are not fulfilled, at any rate in the way
we’d want them to be. As they dance at
the midnight ceilidhs tonight, young people’s eyes are full of excitement about
the future. But for some of us, the future holds the threat of unemployment,
the declining health of a loved one, major surgery. We fear that we’ll reach
the point when we can no longer drive, no longer live alone, no longer trust
our memory. We fear that a close
relationship is disintegrating or that our debts are growing too large to
service.
The temptation is to block the future out in fear, or to turn in upon
ourselves in despair. Instead, may we
embrace the future whatever it holds, remembering that how we experience the
future depends on how open we are as it unfolds to the sustaining presence with
us of the God to whom all our tomorrows are yesterday.
And finally, in the year ahead may we
relinquish those things from the past which hold us back. Fear, guilt, anger,
bitterness, hurt, resentment. We carry heavy loads: indeed, often until we
learn to be present in the present and listen to our hearts we may not realise
how much our attitudes and actions are shaped by fear or anger. We acknowledge the past, we don’t pretend it didn’t
happen: but we do not need to carry heavy burdens from the past into 2016. We need to name them, confront them, and leave
them behind us. May we feel the relief as, in God’s loving presence,
the burdens fall from our backs either immediately, or after a process of
healing.
As we enter 2016 then, may we learn to be
present in the present; to embrace the future with faith and hope; and to relinquish
past wounds.
