January 1, 2009 is today. It is a brand new year. We are new. According to what I've read, we are constantly renewing at a cellular level anyway, but New Year's is one way of acknowledging and marking renewal. What if every New Year's was a sort of soul jubilee--a clean slate. Maybe we are given a brand new chance to be blemish free and innocent. We can choose what we want to carry forward and what we want to leave behind.
What would you do differently if you knew that you were completely and utterly new today with all of the old patterns and garbage and sins left behind? How would you feel today? What would happen if you behaved as if this were true, regardless of whether you could prove it or not. What would you do differently? Of course, it is a matter of choosing. If you choose to bring something forward that really weighs you down, that is up to you. But if you choose to leave it behind, that also is up to you. It could be true, you know. There are some who say that this is true of every second that we are alive. But perhaps it is easier in some way to comprehend if we say it is true on New Year's. Or a birthday.
The new year is often depicted as a new baby. The old year as a bent over, white-bearded old man--the weight of the world on his shoulders. These are all the weights that we pick up over time. The burdens of worries and obligations, of grief and guilt. Of dreams unfulfilled and hopes dashed. Of lives lived in the past or in the future, thinking what could have been or what might be coming just around the next corner.
What if?? What if?? What if we just shook it all off, all of the past year and the years before that as being contained in the past year, and began anew?
What would I carry forward for today?
