Another Year, Another "Auld Lang Syne"

"Auld Lang Syne" is a song that is traditional to the New Year and has been sung and toasted at midnight on New Year's Eve for generations. The song began as a poem written in 1778 by Robert Burns, which he set to folk melody.

The message of "Auld Lang Syne" is that we should not forget our friends from times past, and the song sings of two old friends who haven't seen each other for a while, meet and share a reminiscing of past memories. To me, the song signifies letting go of the last year and what it represented. Often, good friends or family move away, which leaves us with a sense of a loss and void that is not easy to fill. Out with the old and in with the new can sometimes be tough. New situations are sometimes faced with ambiguous feelings, with more than a little anxiety lagging behind. Healing is not easy. The truth is that healing is a powerful choice, and the commitment to heal is the first step in recovery and wellness. As the year 2019 ends and the New Year 2020 begins, let us hope all our endings lead us to a healthier, happier, and a blessed future.

Humility

Our Mirror

Change your Perspective

“Every time I get worried about something I say my prayers more.” – Jim Burns

Whether we grew up in religious families or not, most of us seek help from some Greater Power when we're faced with terrifying situations. Often it's at an unconscious level that we ask for extra help. But the fact that we do elicit strength from some source comforts us, and this enables us to walk through the experience that appears so daunting.

We never outgrow the need for strength and comfort. That's good news. It's too awesome to think that we need to know all now, to understand how every detail of living should unfold. It's quite enough to limit our focus on the details of the next twenty-four hours.

Let's be vigilant about our search for guidance and comfort. And let's not forget that we have to listen for the response. If our minds are filled with worrying, there will be no space for the answers to enter.

Praying for solutions or comfort or just a moment of peace will change my perspective today. When my perspective changes, so do my experiences.

Feast of the Holy Family

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family.  Pope Leo XIII established this Feast to promote the sacredness of family life and to present the Holy Family as the model for all Christian Families.  Many people struggle with the notion that all families should model themselves on the Holy Family.  After all, Angles communicated with Joseph quite a lot,  Mary, our Blessed Mother was conceived without sin and Jesus is the Son of God.  No other family on earth has members who achieve this level of perfection.

We can, however, strive for holiness within our families.  The key to achieving the ideal modeled by the Holy Family is found in our second reading from Colossians 3:12-21.  In this reading St. Paul provides the Christian community of Colossae in Asia Minor with some guidelines for living the ideal Christian life in the world:  “Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another, if one has a grievance against another; as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do. And over all these put on love, that is, the bond of perfection. And let the peace of Christ control your hearts, the peace into which you were also called in one body.”

If each one of us follows St. Paul’s guidelines for Christian living, and applies them to our own lives and to our families, then we might come close to achieving the holiness modeled by the Holy Family.  St. Paul certainly gives us great material for making our New Year’s resolutions.  Happy New Year!   

God our Father,
we give you all thanks and praise
that you chose for your Son a human family.
Through the prayers and example
of Mary and Joseph,
may we too learn
to make room for Jesus in our lives,
that he may grow up in us day after day
and make us more like him.

Teach us to rely on your word,
that in our trials as in our joys
we may be clothed in gentleness and patience
and united in love.
We ask this in the name of Jesus the Lord.

Amen

Serenity Prayer

The Serenity Prayer

God, grant me the serenity to
accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

The Serenity Prayer has comforted millions of people who strive to cope with change, disappointments, chemical dependency, and all sorts of other problems. The prayer can comfort us as we deal with the realities of chronic illness.

When we're overcome with pain or disappointed about slow or little progress, this prayer can help us put our lives into focus. It helps us see if we're wasting time and energy on things we can't change, such as the chronic conditions we live with, how others feel, and the past. And just as important, this prayer points us toward the things that we can control -- our attitude, our willingness to change, and the outcome of this day.

Let us pray for the wisdom to recognize the difference between things we can and cannot change

Hope

Life Lessons Learned from Noah's Ark

1. Don't miss the boat.
2. Remember that we are all in the same boat.
3. Plan ahead. It wasn't raining when Noah built the Ark.
4. Stay fit. When you're 600 years old someone may ask you to do something really big.
5. Don't listen to critics, just get on with the job that needs to be done.
6. Build your future on high ground.
7. For safety's sake travel in pairs.
8. Take care of your animals as if they were the last ones on earth.
9. If you have to start over, have a friend by your side.
10. No matter the storm, when you are with God there's always a rainbow waiting.

Honor the Beginning

Beginnings can be delicate or explosive. They can start almost invisibly or arrive with a big bang. Beginnings hold the promise of new lessons to be learned, new territory to be explored, and old lessons to be recalled, practiced, and appreciated. Beginnings hold ambiguity, promise, fear, and hope.

Don’t let the lessons, the experiences of the past, dampen your enthusiasm for beginnings. Just because it’s been hard doesn’t mean it will always be that difficult. Don’t let the heartbreaks of the past cause you to become cynical, close you off to life’s magic and promise. Open yourself wide to all that the universe has to say.

Let yourself begin anew. Pack your bags. Choose carefully what you bring, because packing is an important ritual. Take along some humility and the lessons of the past. Toss in some curiosity and excitement about what you haven’t yet learned. Say your good-byes to those you’re leaving behind. Don’t worry who you will meet or where you will go. The way has been prepared. The people you are to meet will be expecting you. A new journey has begun. Let it be magical. Let it unfold. Let it be a new beginning as you prepare to meet the Christ child anew.

Be at Peace

Dear God

Dear God, 

I know that the first step in all spiritual healing is to believe. I believe! I open my mind and heart believing in your infinite power and possibility. I believe that healing is a dynamic and reachable experience, a reality that can be experienced right now. I maintain a patient and loving attitude, for I believe that your healing activity is now at work in my mind and body. I look forward, with joyful expectation, to the perfect wholeness that you are now bringing into manifestation through me. I believe in your constant expression of perfect good in and through me. I rest in the certainty of your healing power. I know that with you all things are possible. 

In Your Holy Name, 

Amen

Spiritual Hunger

Can it be?

Have I for so long
Forgotten to feed myself?

Yes.

For nigh a year now
I was slowly starving.
Getting lost in busy days,
Tossing aside the hunger
That chewed away inside.

Yet, I did not die.
By some quiet miracle
I made it to the moment
Of truth:

I nearly starved to death.

It was not my body
That I failed to feed.
It was my spirit,
Left alone for days
Without nourishment or care.

And then one day
I paused to look within,
Shocked at what I found:
So thin of faith,
So weak of understanding,
So needy of encouragement.

My starving spirit cried the truth:

I can! I will! I must Be fed!

And then I read John’s gospel chapter 6.

Never Too Late

Katharine Hepburn once said, "Life is hard. After all, it kills you."  And it can kill you early if you don't figure out how to change.  Let me explain.

The expression "turning over a new leaf" refers to turning pages of a book.  Just as the plot of a novel changes from page to page, people, too, can change their lives.  Indeed they have to if they are to live well.

I enjoy reading about ancient cultures.  And it occurs to me that most of the old civilizations are gone.  Some have left little behind except ruins and rubble.  What happened?  Where are the people, their music and ideas?  Why are they nothing more today than a collection of stones visited by tourists and curious historians?

The answer, of course, is not the same the world over. But Arnold Toynbee, in his work THE STUDY OF HISTORY (1987), says that the great lesson of history is this: civilizations that changed when confronted with challenges thrived. Those that did not change died.In other words, when life got hard, it killed off those who didn't make needed changes. The key to survival is often about "change."

And what about us? What about you and me? It's good to accept ourselves as we are, but when an unhealthy attitude or a destructive behavior gets in the way, when we wish we could change something about ourselves, we had better change. People who embrace change thrive; those who resist it die.

If you have been waiting for a sign to make that needed change, this may be it. I am convinced that it is never too late to be the person you might have been. It's never too late to be happy. It's never too late to do something different or to do something better. It's never too late to change a habit. It's never too late to live.

Begin making that necessary change today. Then tomorrow, and every tomorrow thereafter, can truly be different.

Our Spiritual Life

In our spiritual life, we should be attuned to the seasons and strive to get the most out of every breath we take and every prayer we speak. Stopping to look back on the year, not to relive, but to learn, we have an opportunity to assess: how has my relationship with Jesus grown, how has my prayer life deepened and how have I allowed the Holy Spirit to help me to live the beatitudes?

In the Gospel of Luke 21:34-36, we are called to be wary that our hearts do not become drowsy, that we will be vigilant at all times. Jesus calls us to be watchful and to pray for the strength to be what we need to be for God and for all the people of God.

In other words, our faith should be strong and have a firm foundation in Jesus our Lord, and guided by that, all our actions should be oriented to follow Jesus as closely as we can.

Communion of Saints

Saying Thank You to the Communion of Saints

Remembering to say thank you to our guides and helpers is important for the completion of the assistance they have given.

We may have become accustomed to asking for help from the unseen world - whether from saints, angels, soul friends, guides, or ancestral spirits - but sometimes we may forget to close our connection afterwards with a thank you. When we connect to these energies for assistance, it is much like a phone connection. Forgetting to close the conversation with a proper “goodbye” is like not hanging up. While that line is still connected, others can have trouble getting through, while in the meantime, batteries are being drained. Saying “thank you” is a way of releasing our concerns into trusted hands and getting out of the way so that the universe‚s divine order can work on our behalf.

As spiritual beings, we may talk about “staying connected,” but our connection needs to be with our source. We can plug in and recharge, but we run on batteries in between, and every connection we make utilizes some of our personal power. Even being surrounded by people that energize us has its limits, and at some point we will feel ready to go off on our own to do what is ours to do. Instead of trying to be constantly connected, we can turn to these beings for help in a way that is more like placing an order. We contact them, ask for what we need, and then say thank you and goodbye.

Beings of the light (Jesus) don’t require our gratitude; it is an energetic acknowledgement of trust and release that benefits us. When we bring ourselves to a sense of being grateful, we affirm that what we have asked is already done. Then we can move forward with confidence to do the things we are meant to do, while knowing that all will be well.