I'm most often than not, grateful for a new year. That incremental increase in the digit sometimes feels like hope, that sense of opening the gate to a new field of flowers that bends round the hillside out of sight and that “not knowing what you're going to get" feeling beyond the crest.
But then, more than just hope…mostly, for me…a sense that this New Year (as in every year before it) I will get what I give. Something I can pretty much count on. And if I don't get what I give all of the time, I at least know that what I'm giving will be my own personal defence against the negative and despondent seers of a future bleak and without hope. 2020 was a sure test of fortitude. You see, the problem with hope alone is that we're hoping. Like the problem with belief. It's not enough. It makes us think that hoping, yearning, feeling, praying is enough and it's not. We need to do.
We need to really understand that as we are the example, we are quietly or not so quietly teaching the example…and teaching the example through doing is always better than telling folks what they should be doing or what they should be thinking. The hardest part about being the example of love and hope is that you always try to be the example, even in the face of opposition and despondency. My work has most certainly ingrained that deeply in the marrow.
And lo and behold, what have I found in always attempting to be this example I speak of? Well - I've found it gets easier and easier to do. It fosters empathy. I've found that it becomes more genuine, not less - more a part of myself and more humbling in its practice. And also…it's made me happier with just about everything that comes my way, because as long as I practice it, I am receiving it in return through so many direct and indirect ways. It teaches me things I cannot see in the muck and the mire of negativity and expectations.
So while it is true, that this New Year is not starting out with triumphant trumpets and theatre or gleeful hugs and kisses…it is, for me, starting out with “tactile" hope - people who have done and will continue to do tactile things rather than merely wish. People who have paid for the car behind them in a Tim Horton's line, people who have bought gift cards or sundries from our stores and food from our restaurants, people who have guided newcomers with questions on their Face Book posts, people who have given to food banks and churches, people who have beautified our city with lights and colours to liven up our winter months and people who still make house calls amidst the concern of going out to provide service.
It's all good. Enjoy what is out there. Create some of that enjoyment for others.
So, this is New Year's.…and what have we done?
