Happy New Year?

Children go where I send thee
How shall I send thee?
I'm gonna send thee two by two
Two by Paul and Silas… 
                                         - African-American Traditional

While the beginning of a new year is a great time to push a reset button, I don't do new year resolutions.

I do spend time noodling about a word to focus on for the coming year and create a relationship with that word that leads me to be more healthy, more mindful, more thoughtful, more humble, and more loving with the ultimate goal of helping me leave 2018 better than when it started.

Some words I've been trying on include:

Advance - Some believe retreats should be called advances as in moving forward rather than backwards. Advance suggests being open and creating possibilities, forging a new path, looking with new eyes and hearing with new ears.

Vigilant - To be vigilant means to be awake, to be present, to be aware.

Delight - Delight seems to be calling me to reconnect with gratitude and not take people or things for granted. Finding delight in the ordinary can make people and things extraordinary.

Surrender - Surrender doesn't do it for me. It seems to say settle. I believe I unknowing surrendered last year. Surrender, has that link to the serenity prayer by Reinhold Niebuhr which caused me to reconsider:

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

The word that seems to be calling me is resilience.

  1: the capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after deformation, caused especially by compressive stress 
  2 : an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change

  

Even though resilience is a noun, it is call to action. It is a challenge to fight entropy. To be resilient is to stop being complacent, to stop shrugging one's shoulders and stop saying, 'It is what it is,' 'Whatever,' and 'Not my circus, not my monkeys!' Resilience is a call to take a stand. It's a call to face and act upon that mega vision, "What kind of world do I wish to create for tomorrow's child?"

The scallop shell is the iconic symbol for pilgrims to look for and follow on the Camino de Santiago to reach the tomb of Saint James in Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain. There are different routes pilgrims can take to reach St. Jame's tomb. Like all the different possible routes to Santiago, the lines of the scallop shell converge to one point.

The call for resilience is to find the route that brings us together. I challenge you to join the pilgrimage. It may be inconvenient. You may have a load of excuses. It will be messy. You may not enjoy the journey. It is necessary. It needs to begin now. Come struggle with me! Become resilient!