2018 - Journey vs. Destination

I’m sitting here today in a different state than years past.

I’ve begun so many new years with the assurances of a young and confident yet somewhat naive mind intent on turning over a new leaf.

But this year, my mind feels older, quieter, tired and spent...yet also somehow clearer and wiser looking into the increasingly cloudy future.

For I see better today what I’ve tried to ignore before - today is simply a continuation of yesterday. Tomorrow, a continuation of today. An unbroken and hardly insignificant string yesterdays and yesteryears leading up to the here and now.

Though a fresh blank calendar page holds infinite possibilities, it does not--cannot--sever today from the realities of yesterday—bad or {blessedly} good.

I’m finally stepping into this new year freed from the delusions that the tick of a seven to an eight might solve the world’s problems or magically transform me into the person I intend to be all at the stroke of midnight.

What I do now understand is why so many spin a set of four numbers into a pseudo-savior.
It's because of what this little blip from one digit to another represents — hope.

Whether it occurs in the middle of an indistinguishable season or smack dab on a natural dividing line of life, this officially recognized new start is a veritable beacon of hope. Hope to the weary world which, whether we can collectively admit it or not, recognizes that the heavy drone of life as we know it is in need of desperate rescuing. With banded voices crying out for justice and peace and respect and dignity, the world has almost inadvertently put its finger on the pulse of our sole hope of salvation—Love.

Yes, the newness of 2018 gives a heightened sense of hope to the cry for Love.

But underlying this is the truth that we are all still humans, fallen and failure-rigged by nature, whose myopic focus tends toward outrage before Love. Because the kind of saving, healing Love we crave is not innately human; it finds its origins in the supernatural, the Divine.

So despite our best efforts to fight against what burdens our world, we only seem to be muddling things further; in striking out so humanly and indignantly and angrily, we are slowly bleeding out of that one singular lifeblood of Love that can rescue us from ourselves.

I wish I could say I’m wired differently. But if I examine my motives for more than a moment, it seems that indignation and offense {or some other equally distasteful trait} light the fire in my belly far more quickly than a deep-rooted Love for humanity at large.

It's in this fallen state of humanity that we hang our high hopes on a New Year while concurrently undermining it before it even starts with the darkness of judgement and blame and resentment burrowed deep in our hearts.

We readily stuff down the darkness and hope that the clean slate of a New Year can erase the pains of the past. But when I stop to rest on this line of thinking, I must ask, “do we really want to forget?” 

Is it worth more to run from--or grow from--pain? 

Is hope ever effective when it ignores reality? 

Or is it most effective when it embraces realism while attempting, with the graces of supernatural Love, to learn and acknowledge and overcome?

If I’m different at all, it’s only in my increasing awareness of my countless contributions to what's plaguing humanity--and in my aching desire to remember to invite this supernatural Love into all the places and spaces of human weakness which I will always fail to reform on my own. 

Yet awareness and desire are a start. 

So I step expectantly into the New Year with no definitive resolution, but with eyes and heart wide open--praying they will remain so.

I abandon the grand eraser labeled “good riddance, 2017,” and continue on this next leg of a life-long journey, holding tight to the ribbon that ties me back to the past, weaving together both joy and suffering, gratitude and frustration, accomplishment and failure, winding through acres of growth.

I look ahead to blank space that holds the certainty of challenge, necessary hardships that I have already named and defined and penciled in, knowing there's no other way except forward and through. But in the same white space, I consider the infinite possibilities of gift and greatness and joy I can’t yet name or fathom which will surely fill the pages till bursting.

Yes, I’m haphazardly plotting my course into this year with an undetermined azimuth, but for the first time this is not triggering a sense of alarm. I’m feeling less compelled than ever to name a definitive destination; I’m journeying into this year softer in several places and stronger in others, unsure in so many ways and more open than ever to letting God navigate through the uncertainty.

I have the heaven-sent word docility whispering wisdom into my spirit, entreating me to listen with closed lips and an open, teachable heart—

I have St. Mary Magdalene standing firm as my patroness for the year, the lessons of her life already reaching into mine to instruct and guide—

And I have the word lavish already showing up in the most consistent and surprising ways, washing over me with all the promises of 1 John 3:1.

Most importantly, I begin 2018 chewing on last year's reminder that I cannot snap my fingers and be instantly at a goal, no matter how worthy; it will first take deliberate planting, gentle watering, a constant clearing away of the weeds, and perseverance over the course of many months to see any amount of growth—let alone fruit.

But I’m finally understanding that maybe—just maybe—that process of growth leading to the fruit has been the point all along.


Divine Master, help me to sow and cultivate the seeds that You would have me grow, help me invest in the process and the journey, trusting Your time and place for the destination, and help me to foster hope by inviting into my actions the life-giving essence of Your supernatural Love.