1 st January: New Year’s Day

This is a time of resolution, a time for vision, change, and betterment. Kant spoke of the “crooked timber” of humanity and, with such raw material to work upon, resolution is apposite and needful. Little can be done for the good or betterment of humanity without the positive engagement of our wills. Some people are “gifted” in the realm of resolute action: revolutionaries, statesmen and stateswomen, business executives, social reformers. Sadly, resolution may also reflect the dark side of personality. Milton’s Satan, on expulsion from heaven, encouraged his fellow fallen angels. “What though the field be lost? / All is not lost; the unconquerable Will, / … And courage never to submit nor yield”. Just as we must be careful what we wish for, so we need to be careful what is in the driving seat of our resolution.

Resolution has figured largely in Christianity. This is especially so in the “muscular Christianity” of Victorian times. In works of popular and influential spirituality, such as Oswald Chambers’ My Utmost for His Highest, the emphasis on will is strong. Chambers proclaimed that the “will is the whole man active. I cannot give up my will I must exercise it, I must will to obey and I must will to receive God’s Spirit”. Many no doubt have found their lives turned around, re-directed by this spirituality of will, resolution, and determination. But, though of practical benefit, this muscular Christianity, in its emphasis on will, may suffer from lack of sensitivity and vision. Broadly speaking, it is a spirituality of the ego rather than the soul.

The Old Testament lesson for today gives some help with regard to what a spirituality of the soul looks like. It is an attitude that is sensitive to life’s variety, to its highs and lows. The mysterious soul is always on a learning curve with time, in its seasons, as her teacher. Every life passes through seasons of laughter, tears, war and peace, hate and love. The seasonal nature of life gives birth to what may be called a spirituality of submission. This has an immediate unattractiveness to the ego that wishes to take the most direct route to spiritual and moral high ground. The soul, in contrast, is like a traveller finding her meandering way over and around insurmountable obstacles. Changing, challenging times are negotiated through an attitude of gratitude and acceptance, of waiting, observing and learning. Today, on the threshold of a new year, when the patchwork of past experience is recollected personally and poignantly, and when the future looms unknown, the words of Ecclesiastes encourage a soulful resolve—gentle more than strident, more submissive than triumphal.

The clue to this type of spirituality is in the word ‘resolution’ itself. The word resolve in its Latin root means to ‘lessen’ or ‘let go’. This is in sharp contrast to the idea of mustering the powers of the will to forge ahead. The idea of letting go, of lessening our grip, points in another direction from control and mastery; it suggests a resolution comprised of child-like trust and a surrender to love. This is a radical type of resolution.

Thérèsa of Lisieux formed much of her spirituality around the concept of the spirituality of childhood. The wonder, simplicity and trust of children can seem forever gone in our adult world. But, through grace, it is possible to do as grown ups what the child does without any forethought or effort. Through the presence of God in our lives, it is possible to re-discover something of childhood’s spontaneity and innocence. This is, indeed, a loosening, a letting go, a resolution in the more original meaning. It is a resolution that lets go of the things that stand as barriers to the child within. These barriers may be an over rational approach to life that neglects feeling and intuition, or an over institutional view of life that never peers beneath the social veneers. Beyond the barriers, the child within waits to be heard and loved. And the very child that needs loving is the same child that can bring the joy of God to lives hardened or saddened—often by efforts to beat the world by the world’s methods.

So, in this New Year of 2016, we have an opportunity to become newly acquainted with the soul. The seasons of the soul enable us to range beyond the treadmill of our lives, to live as it were in the perspective of eternity. The passage of time may frighten as we grow old and seem a harbinger of the dark reaper. But time and death lose their power when we rest on the eternity of God’s loving embrace. The new heavens and the new earth, that John in his vision perceives, are already present here and now. It is now that God wipes tears away from our eyes. The apocalypse, whilst it ‘unveils’ many lurid pictures of destruction and horror, speaks of new spiritual realities. The leaves of the tree of life are for the healing of the nations (Rev. 22:2). What solace to a world weary of war! The new heavens are the concomitant of new birth in the soul. The new earth is already here through the victory of the lamb on the throne of the universe. This New Year’s Day is a date on the calendar, but it is also a point of disclosure. Now! God’s infinite love is realised in the particularity of this time and place.

Particularity of personal circumstance is not a closed circle; it embraces our human brothers and sisters. The gospel for today makes this plain. How we live in relation to our human brothers and sisters is the mark of how we really live in relation to Christ. As much as we do things to the least of our sisters and brothers we do them to him. Indifference, exploitation, ridicule, false witness—the list of hurt is endless. But the great alternative is set before us: love and care for each other. Recently, I read from a book where the author tells of the last words of her mother to the family: “try to look after each other”. ¹ When we look after one another, we realize that we are part of the soulfulness of the world. The world is more than jostling egos in search of power and advantage. The Kingdom of God is already in each of us and among us if we had the leisure to see and perceive it. “In God we live and move and have our being”; if only we could draw back the curtains, open the door, and appreciate each new dawn. The soulfulness of the world is not a bland reality; it is rich and fair, peopled with human beings and all creatures great and small. At the door of this New Year let us lessen our grip on the past; let us be more trusting of God’s love in our disappointments and pain. May our resolutions bring us to a better home, one that is brighter and more habitable, more welcoming and friendly, than any the isolated ego can ever promise, or deliver. And may the ego too find in the soul a true friend.