God bless us everyone...

I'll be on the road just before the main frivolities of New Year's Eve get underway and with any luck at all I'll be safe in home and bed before the year changes.

I've never been much of a New Year's Eve person. I don't know why for sure, maybe its because when I was growing up we usually spent at least part of the evening in church. Perhaps it's just an act of self preservation. The chronic alcoholics I used to work with as a Chaplain often called New Year's Eve "Amateur Night" and I'm not sure I want to be out and about with folks who have no idea how to really drink. It's one of those things I've noticed that really old drunks know how to handle themselves in ways that Joe Accountant on his one big night has no clue. Of course being an old drunk requires a certain savvy for survival just to get "old" in the first place. Alcohol has this way of thinning out the herd.

And home and bed seems to be the best place for me to be this New Year's Eve. There's a part of me that wishes this year was a bad dream and if I could just wake up and everything would be okay. Too much loss, too many sharp edges, too many gray areas, too much staring at the sky and asking unanswerable questions. It's been a year when I've often felt like I was at the wrong end of a bowling alley so why celebrate it's passing. Just to sleep, and perchance to dream, and then buoyed by an artificially constructed date left to us by our Roman overlords by magic the past goes away.

I'm a creature of my culture so I have resolutions. Lose weight, exercise more, lose anger, pray more, be healthier, hope we all stay as intact as possible, world peace, the usual. I'll write about this time next year and tell you how it all came out. I hope your resolutions work out as well. I've learned, though, not to hold my breath. Slow and steady usually wins the race.

Perhaps the most important thing I've learned in this past year is how precious life is, and how we musn't dawdle when it comes to the important things because things change, sometimes literally in a heartbeat.
Little by little time, life, and the grace of God are burning away the unimportant, the chaff, the temporary. I'm probably more prepared to die now then I've ever been because there is less to cling to but I'm also more preapred to live because the important stuff has become more precious. I'm older now and so I get to see the doctor more often but that is an inconvenience. When my soul isn't right is when I really start to hurt and in whatever time is left I'll care for the physical stuff for maintenance but the spiritual stuff for the long haul, actually the longest haul.

In that light there seems to be just one piece of priestly advice for the new year that comes to mind. Pray for the peace of the world. We see all the darkness of the world and it's overwhelming sometimes but it also calls us to lift this tired old world up to God in prayer. We're not perfect, the world's a far ways away from perfect, but beyond the fear, paralysis, and frustration lies prayer and we always and everywhere need to lift up holy, and not so holy, hands for the sake of this world. It matters.

That all being said I wish you the deepest presence of Christ in this year, all the years to come, and as we Orthodox like to say "unto ages of ages". Amen.

Happy New Year.