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 ©2023 by David Spangler. If you no longer wish to receive these letters, please let us know at info@Lorian.org.
Making All Things New
The New Year is a human invention. Although I’m sure they are aware of the changing of seasons, I doubt whether the maple trees in my backyard or the crows that sit in its branches know that a “new year” has begun. They don’t keep calendars or mark certain days as special.
But we do. The idea of “newness” is important to us. We believe in renewal, in new beginnings. We make resolutions and say that this year will be different. In our iconography, the new year is pictured as a baby, something yet to be formed, filled with potential, alive with hope.
For many years, I wrote and lectured about the idea of a New Age. Although this is a complex idea with historical antecedents and mystical and cultural overtones, at heart, it’s an expression of the same desire for newness and for making a fresh start. Whether it’s a New Year or a New Age, there is a feeling of a door opening onto new vistas and new potentials.
More importantly, what we celebrate at New Year—resonating with the idea of newness itself—is not an event in time but a power within us. We have the power to change.We have the power to make things new.
When we make our New Year resolutions, we are acknowledging this power. We may do so laughingly, recognizing that in the face of habit and inertia, change can be difficult. We may ruefully acknowledge that the resolutions we made probably won’t survive into February, but the point is that we make them in the first place, recognizing that, whether successful or not, we do have the ability to change. We are not irredeemably tied to or shaped by our past. We are not prisoners of our history. We can begin anew.
Recognizing this ability, this power to make all things new, is particularly important at this time when humanity is being asked to make unprecedented changes on behalf of the world and our own survival.
As an event on the calendar, the New Year will come every January 1st. But as an event in our hearts and minds, it comes each time we open to hope, to new vision, to possibility and potential, and act to be a source of newness in our lives.
May you have a blessed and wondrous New Year!
An Experiment
One of the advantages of David’s Desk being digital is that I can do things I couldn’t if it were printed. My Lorian colleague and friend, James Tousignant, and I do podcasts together. He thought it might be interesting to you, my Reader, if he and I were to have a discussion around the theme of that month’s essay and then add the audio at the end. That way, you could both read my thoughts for that month and also listen to me talk about them with James. So, without further ado, here is this month’s conversation. I hope you enjoy it and the added dimension it brings to David’s Desk.