Happy New Year!
I went to the gym on Monday and was surprised to find I couldn’t find a machine to work out on. Where did all these people come from? And what are they all doing in MY gym? Oh, of course, I remember – it’s national guilt-trip month, America’s favorite way to purge away the sinfulness of our holiday glut. All the consumerism and consumption leaves quite a hangover and so we collectively whip ourselves into shape for a few days — perhaps even all the way until February.
I’ve never been a big one for New Year’s resolutions, and never much succeeded at them either. Some of us can accomplish things simply by setting ourselves the task, and others (myself included) have to resort to tricks and illusions to force lifestyle changes. I am best at creating new habits when I structure them into my life, and the best way for me to do this is to sign up for commitments I can’t back out of. I know there must be some others of you out there who also announce your commitments as a way of creating accountability, so you’ll understand this: I’m going to meditate more this year, and I’m announcing it to anyone who will listen, in the hopes that when the benefits of meditation seem low, at least the cost of going back on my word might seem high.
Paul writes in his epistle to the Romans, “what I do, I do not want to do,” and perhaps January should be the national month of reading Romans (see chapter 7 and 8) as we begin to see our resolutions unravel at the seams. We understand that inner battle, when parts of us want things quite different from the other parts. Sometimes it’s hard to even begin finding which one of those parts might be our true Self. Paul counsels us to put all that striving and fighting in the past, to let go of the Mind-vs-Body struggle, and to live in the Spirit where we can know freedom and receive grace beyond what we could earn. For if we look with the eyes of the Spirit we can see Christ living within us, and know that the love which binds us is immeasurable. Yes, by all means, try hard to achieve your goals. But know that however we go forward into the New Year, whether we do it with graceful beauty or with a spectacular belly flop, all is held in the kind sight of Divine Love.
Every Blessing,
Talitha