Along with many people I know, I've become suspicious of New Year's resolutions. My own have tended to be too ambitious and too will based - setting me up for failure some time around mid-January. But I find myself still strongly drawn to take stock around this time of year. I want to reflect on where I am and what the coming year invites and promises, on how I might be different or freshly available.
A member of Benedictus invited us to a New Year's Eve picnic yesterday, at her beautiful property out near Tarago.
Jen is a potter and there were some delightful and quirky juxtapositions to enjoy.
As well as the vista of the Lake George wind farms, seen from the other side.
It was a wonderful way for a few of us to gather, pause and connect with the bush on this threshold of the new year and a great blessing.
Then this morning, Neil and I re-read David Whyte's poem, 'What to remember when waking'. I was particularly struck by these lines:
What you can plan
is too small
for you to live.
What you can live
wholeheartedly
will make plans
enough
for the vitality
hidden in your sleep.
For me, this is a lovely and timely reminder not to clutch at the shape of life and vocation: 'what you can plan is too small for you to live'. It's an invitation to yielding or total self-giving - wholeheartedness - trusting that in and through this self-giving, I will become available for and open to what is still to unfold and yet also present to enjoy what is already, not letting an orientation to the future squeeze out delight and joy in the here and now. In place of will based resolutions, it asks me to be disposed to participate in 'the vitality' that is the source and the redemption of things.
I hope I remember this not only today, but throughout the year!
Shalom,
Sarah
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