David's Desk is my opportunity to share thoughts and tools for the spiritual journey. These letters are my personal insights and opinions and do not necessarily reflect the sentiments or thoughts of any other person in Lorian or of Lorian as a whole. If you wish to share this letter with others, please feel free to do so; however, the material is ©2019 by David Spangler. If you no longer wish to receive these letters, please let us know at info@Lorian.org.
Before I say anything else, let me wish you a blessed, productive, abundant, and happy New Year. How wonderful to have 2021 arrive! 2020 was a challenging beast of a year, and I’m happy to have it behind us rather than ahead of us. Of course, we have no idea what this year may have in store for us, but there are reasons to hope, a COVID vaccine being among them.
The main reason to hope, though, from my perspective at least, lies not in any external events but within ourselves. It lies in our capacity to rise above the past and the habits it imposes and to see things in fresh ways, to say, “Whatever has gone before, today I start anew.” This is a power of choice that we always have within us, but New Year’s Day is the time when we most acknowledge and celebrate it.
New Year’s is such a peculiarly human celebration. From the point of view of the maple tree in my backyard or the birds that nest in it, January 1st is no different from December 31st. The sun sets, the sun rises, and the cycle of the day goes on as it always does. Furthermore, picking the first day of January as New Year’s Day is a cultural decision. Throughout human history, other cultures have picked other days to celebrate the beginning of a new year, sometimes based on agricultural cycles, sometimes on celestial ones.
The importance of New Year’s Day lies not in when it occurs in the course of the year but in what it signifies: a chance to reset and begin anew. We make resolutions of what we will change in our lives. We say, “This year is going to be different.” And in the flush of that first day of the new year, we mean it. We have a sense, however momentary, that things will change, that the year will be different, that something new is beginning. We grasp the vision of these possibilities. We recognize the opportunity to see the world and our own lives afresh, leading to new choices and new actions that will make a difference.
What is needed is the will to act on that vision and make those choices and take those actions. The gift of New Year’s is not that it’s a new year but that it encourages our innate power to see ourselves in a new light, recognizing that change is possible if we choose to make it so.
It's the choice that’s important, and the will, the steadiness, and the vision to see our choices through into implementation. No season of the year will do this for us. But it can remind us that this is who we are, people with the power to choose and to change. It can remind us to see ourselves afresh.
Many years ago, the young child of friends of mine wished me a “Happy New You!” We chuckled that she got the words wrong, repeating what she thought the adults were saying, yet in fact, she got the words exactly right. Behind everything else—the fireworks, the celebrations, the ball dropping on Time’s Square in New York City, the parties—this is what we are affirming: a “new you” that we can each become if we so choose and the new year that can emerge from that choice.
So, my friends, I wish you a Happy New You. May you see yourself and the world afresh, ready and able to make 2021 a year of healing, of hope, of restoration, and of blessing.