Perhaps you are like me, and as this year closes you feel a deep heaviness in your heart. You’ve become disillusioned, despondent and certainly in despair of any possibility to stop what seems to be the inevitable decline both of our nation and our culture. Like me, perhaps you feel a deep sorrow about all that is before us: permanent war, political bribes and corruption, the targeting of young black men by police, the theft of our commonwealth by the plutocrats, of the growing practice of turning Muslims into scapegoats for our country’s sins and the spiritual numbness brought on by the disappearance of compassion as an American characteristic.
The list could go on, couldn’t it? But I don’t want to end this year or start the new year as a captive of fear. I simply want to remind us of what is real, what is true and what is good in this world, in this country and in the lives of those we see with our eyes.
What is real, true and good is that we all belong to each other. Our lives are entangled together in a story far more complex and thrilling than merely our own individual narratives of a few short years. We are the spiritual energy of the cosmos in material form. We are the descendants of the stardust that emerged from the creative Great Radiance that some call the Big Bang some 13.8 billion years ago.
We are the personalization of creation, and our lives contribute to a future not our own. There are no pre-determined scripts other than of our own making. We can choose differently. We can act differently. Think differently. And in this new year I want to encourage each of us to remember who we are and dare us to be the change we desire in the world. I want to encourage us in our own little lives, in our own little ways to evolve, to create a future worth living.
As one year ends and another begins, let us use the turning as our own pivot point. Look again into the eyes of the beloved and see again the beauty of your partner. Look again into the eyes of the stranger and celebrate again the great curiosity of daring to know another. Look again at your lifestyle, your employment, your entertainments and reaffirm the opportunities to share life together as best we can, with what we have, for the sheer joy of being able to bless another. Live in such a way that others are glad you are alive.
What is real, true and good is that we are evolving. We have the capacity to live, the capacity to change our situation and ourselves. In 2016, I hope we can live the real, the true and the good.