A Contrarian Perspective on New Year Observances

 I have commented elsewhere that I am not aware that New Year commemorates anything in particular. It is an essential convenience for bookkeepers and tax accountants. We have turned it into an excuse for excessive exuberance and the cultivation of a false hope that somehow passing the date will interrupt the essential continuity of life. The seeds of 2022 were not just sown in 2021, but in 2020, 2016, 1860, 1776. 1492, and 346. Add years that seem significant to you while thinking about the ones I selected. Nothing magic there, just years whose seeds are still growing among us.

To be sure the last few years (not just two) have been particularly stressful in the US and even the world, but I am reminded of the line from the song "The Great Mandella" (1995 Peter, Paul and Mary). "It's been going on for ten thousand years." But I would suggest that 2022 will only be better if we think, talk, and work better together. I am afraid that wallowing in moaning about 2021 will only contaminate 2022. Yes, a hard time, but for those reading this (who have the luxury of a computer and internet connection) cultivating thanksgiving will grow more positive fruit in 2022.

1 Thessalonians 5.18: "Give thanks in all circumstances."

Psalm 50:14 "Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving,"

Kneeling Before the Mystery

 

"I have said for many years that as one who aspires to follow Jesus, I do not identify myself as either liberal or conservative, not as moderate either. I don't find that continuum to be at all helpful in understanding how I want to relate to living in reality. In his meditation today, I resonated with how Fr. Richard Rohr described it. 'The contemporary choice offered most of us living in the West is between unstable correctness (liberals) and stable illusion (conservatives)!' I do resonate with the alternative he proposes in today's meditation: 'Kneeling Before the Mystery.' I hope some of you will read it at: https://cac.org/kneeling-before-the-mystery-2021-12-27/..."

People of the Lie in Psalm 144:8 and the 2020 Election and January 6 Storming of the US Capitol

When I came to Psalm 144:8 in my Psalm prayer cycle this morning, I had a conversation with God about the emerging information and incompatible versions of the 2020 election and the storming of the US Capitol on January 6. The Psalmist invokes God’s judgment on those “whose mouths speak lies, who right hands are false.” That conversation took me back several years to reading M. Scott Peck’s 1983 book “The People of the Lie.” He wrote how from his psychiatric practice he came to distinguish between those who were “sick” (mentally ill) and those who were “evil” (purposely and knowingly doing or saying what they themselves knew was wrong). I asked God not only how I could distinguish between those whose words and actions (about the election and January 6) were “sick” (e.g. delusional) and “evil” (knowing what they were saying was untrue), but also what would be an appropriate, Christ-like response to the “sick” and to the “evil.”