Happy New Year

Today is the first of January 2021 and it is a rainy icy day in Columbus Ohio.  It doesn't really matter to me because I am not going anywhere. 

Audrey has covid and I am quarantining.  Tomorrow I will be taking a test to see if I have covid and in the meantime I wait alone at home.  Which sounds worse than it is.  I have enough food, books, television, and other distractions to completely fill my day.  

Yesterday I thought I had covid and today I think I probably don't.  That is certainly my desire as the possibility of having corona virus takes me into thoughts of sickness, dependence, hospitalization and death.  I can go there in a heartbeat.

I had a tele-health appointment yesterday which  was very helpful because the doctor said - if I do have it, the biggest issue is breathing.  If I have trouble breathing - then you contact that doctor.  Otherwise, everything else can be handled with over the counter drugs.  And he said that of the hundreds of patients he has seen with covid only ONE had to go to the hospital.  That is certainly comforting.

So I wait and wonder and consider that today January first.  A new year. Often I think about resolutions or plans for the coming year.  Not this year.  I still am living in so much suspension about the future that I cannot even imagine what is going to happen in the next week - let alone the next year.  My daughters have already secured a beach cottage for June, so they are assuming that we will be somewhat "back to normal" by then and I hope so.  The problem for me - and I suspect for many of us - is I cannot quite see what "normal" will look like for me.

But as I sit here at the computer I think I will put into writing some intentions for the new year - which by writing them down can bring a little acountability

 - I have got to find ways to learn more - through reading and  course work.  I am aware that life is more interesting for me when I am exposed  to new information, perspectives, and people.  When we are "back to normal" I hope to take some classes in person - and not just online.

- I have to continue playing pickleball and maybe add some new way to move my body with people.  Pickleball has been the gift for me of 2020  giving me new friends and makes me realize that exercise with others really gives me life.  So my intention is to continue and to add to it!

- I want to  continue to deepen my spiritual life.  This past year I took an online course with James Finley on Teresa of Avila and I need to do more of this kind of thing.

- I want to take more risks - maybe in trying new things or going new places.  I have a tendency to keep on with where I have been in the past and doing the same old, same old.  I hope that a year from now I can name three "risks" I have taken in 2021. 

I guess this is enough to get started.  I am so aware of this "both and" to life - which is being in the present and satisfied and grateful for what is  and looking ahead to something new and improved.  I need both - I think we all do.  New Year's Day is a good day for just thinking about all of it.

I found this prayer by Ted Loder which speaks for me today

I Hold My Life up to You Now

Patient God,
the clock struck midnight
and I partied with a strange sadness in my heart,
confusion in my mind.

Now, I ask you
to gather me,
for I realize
the storms of time have scattered me,
the furies of the year past have driven me,
many sorrows have scarred me,
many accomplishments have disappointed me,
much activity has wearied me,
and fear has spooked me
into a hundred hiding places,
one of which is pretended gaiety.
I am sick of a string of “have-a-nice-days.”
What I want is passionate days,
wondrous days,
dangerous days,
blessed days,
surprising days,
What I want is you!

Patient God
this day teeters on the edge of waiting
and things seem to slip away from me,
as though everything were only memory
and memory is capricious.
Help me not to let my life slip away from me.
O God, I hold up my life to you now,
as much as I can,
as high as I can,
in this mysterious reach called prayer.

Come close, lest I wobble and fall short.
It is not days or years I seek from you,
not infinity and enormity,
but small things and moments and awareness,
awareness that you are in what I am
and in what I have been indifferent to.

It is not new time,
but new eyes,
new heart I seek,
and you.

 

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