It is that time of the year again. The festivities have come to an end, shutdowns are over, and with the start of a new year our minds and hearts try (sometimes rather sluggishly) to get the momentum going again. The start of a new year means different things to different people.
Some of us are excited for what is coming up in the new year: a wedding, the birth of a child, entering into a new property; a new project at work; a much-awaited holiday. Even the mere recollection of some things is enough to fill us with enthusiasm.
Others might look upon this new year with a heavy heart, with a spirit of discouragement and dread. For some, the new year brings a general sense of worry that weighs hearts down: a planned medical procedure; a challenging relationship; a mental health issue that is becoming more serious; a difficult task at work.
In every person there is an intricate synthesis of these two states: excitement and dread, openness and fear. And while our calendar is just our way of making sense of the passage of time, human beings need these transitions to alert them that this journey has its stages, landmarks, halts, change of directions and sometimes even regressions.
The start of a new year serves as a reminder that time remains the greatest gift
What is surely the case is that this time (which is and always will remain a gift) is an opportunity. In the gospels, we are given an intimate view into how the human heart operates in front of opportunities and challenges. One servant whose master trusts him with his estate rises to the occasion and fulfils his duties. The other cowers inwardly, weighed down by the fear of failure and its consequences.
In more than one area of life and for many times over, the task in front of us is to start over. Our hearts are not fond of starting over because it takes the greatest amount of energy to get out of inertia. Some realities in life, which have been allowed to stagnate, will torment us so that we do not deal with them concretely. We tend to become rigid and entrapped, and even the slightest of requests to change, like the start of a new year, might represent a nightmare instead of an opening to something new.
And while one could elucidate this further, sometimes (or rather most of the time) poetry sums things up in a much better way. The following are the closing lines of For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet, by Joy Harjo:
“Call your spirit back. It may be caught in corners and creases of shame, judgement, and human abuse. You must call in a way that your spirit will want to return. Speak to it as you would to a beloved child. Welcome your spirit back from its wandering. It may return in pieces, in tatters. Gather them together. Then, you must do this: help the next person find their way through the dark.”
Like the Son of Man who kept on journeying (in both successes and in failures) because he constantly remembered his calling, the start of a new year serves as a reminder that time remains the greatest gift, imbued with a personal call that is being uncovered before our eyes.