I write this on the eve of the turning of the year. As the old year passes our attentions naturally turn to a new year dawning. In time and space nothing changes at midnight on the 31st of December. Yet, in the way we organize our collective life midnight on December 31st is a conscious transition point. It's a boundary marker between the present-past and the present-future. It evokes new beginnings, not simply the new beginning of a new year, but all our experience of new beginnings.

 

New beginning is an experience that recalls the anxieties of first days at school, college, on the job etc. It is also an experience that reconnects us to the hope and expectation of the new. How are you feeling as you move into a new year?

 

We are in the habit at the moment of viewing the future with a sense of concern if not foreboding. So much is wrong with our world and on the whole we feel powerless to make much of a difference for the good. I want to remind us that hope and optimism are not the same things. We feel optimistic as a reflection of things going well around us. On the other hand hope is a quality of expectation that does not rely on our perception of the world. Hope springs from our faith in the promises of a better future; a future we long for with all our hearts.

 

The point about having hope is not necessarily the realization of our hopes, but that a hopeful vision empowers us to plant the seeds now that will lead to that for which we hope. The theologian Paul Tillich reminded us that while we hope for something that has not yet arrived, the very act of hoping for it means that it is in some sense already present to us. I saw a very funny caption that read: make a big splash - attitude is everything.

 

Stabilitas, or steadiness is a quality most valued in our Anglican spiritual tradition. It is St Benedict's first vow.  Stabilitas teaches us to be ready for what ever comes our way in the knowledge that a steady and hopeful heart can weather any storm.

 

May we all enjoy a purposeful New Year in which joy and hope will guide us to the discovery of ever-deeper levels of transformation.

 

Mark+