AN INVOCATION FOR THE NEW YEAR - Gareth Higgins

Carlingford Lough from Rostrevor, County Down, August 2022

Some thoughts on New Year's Eve...

When so much seems uncertain, ungraspable, slipping through our fingers, it’s comforting to remember that a year is a real thing, and its parameters can’t be changed by people. The moon in the photo above was rising over Carlingford Lough, and standing there in Rostrevor I couldn't do anything to help or stop it. The night, and the day, and the year would continue no matter what. Nothing we can do is going to prevent the earth making another journey around the sun. We can only resist or join the rhythm of life.

There are invented trappings at the end of the year, of course - especially those associated with the bustle and definite hustle of “the holiday season”; not to mention the pressure as the year turns to make resolutions that are often about punishing ourselves for not being good enough - at food or exercise, or maintaining some other habit.

But there are some lovely liberations too, especially when we give ourselves to the most life-giving notions of those religious and cultural holidays; one of which is to recognize that a year's ending and a new one beginning are real things in a world where we really need the real.

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So if you’re thinking about New Year’s resolutions today, my wish for you would be the invitation embodied by any true spiritual tradition: all laws worth following, and all human wisdom are summed up in the instruction to devote ourself to love, and to love our neighbor as ourself; to do unto others as we would have them do unto us; and to not do to others what we would not want done to us.

This love and this doing are not superficial, sentimental, or weak. They apply equally to gardeners as to warriors. Indeed, because quiet doesn't always mean kind, and nonviolent confrontation is sometimes a necessary manifestation of the common good, these teachings are necessary to clarify the difference between aggression and the urge to protect the vulnerable without vengeance, and between egocentric hiding and contemplative introversion.

And while the phrases that include love your neighbor and do unto others may seem outdated through overuse, or because we first heard them in a childhood setting, there is no more recent idea that contradicts or improves on the teachings embodied within them.

These teachings come from thousands of years and millions of people who found them to be the only answer not just to the most mundane questions, but to the greatest suffering humans have known. Some of the most courageous people - in the most dangerous or painful circumstances - are also some of the kindest.

When we let ourselves be permeated by these words, practicing the habit of bringing what we have, and asking for what we need, we are on the path of the most creative and peaceful, edgiest and bravest, happiest and saddest, most challenging and easiest, fullest and emptiest, most welcoming and sometimes loneliest, most quiet and active, restful and engaged kind of life. The best life possible. 

So if you’re making resolutions today, I want to encourage you not to beat yourself up for this past year’s “failures”, or setting yourself up for more in the next year. Instead, perhaps start by asking yourself, “Who would I be next year - for myself, for others, for the world - if I treated myself as my own best friend?”

We'll talk about these things in person, at the Porch Gathering, ten weeks from now. You're invited. www.theporchgathering.com