Do you get the feeling that life is changing
too fast? That the hours and the days and the years just run away from you? I do.
Look at how fast the last year flew by! So
much upheaval and sorrow in the world. So many goals I wanted to reach and,
despite drowning in busy-ness from January to December, I’m no further forward.
Am I chained to one spot in my life, a spot I can’t break free from?
Were the last twelve months wasted living
in a world that offers nothing except the same old troubles?
As I’m distracted by the depressing details
of daily living, wearied by the struggle to reach the goals so important to my
happiness and, at times, lost in the incessant clamour of a too-noisy world, is
living the life I want to lead only a fading dream?
Already this new year’s plans and dreams
and hopes are tarnished by anxiety and the stress of “what if.”
What if … our country goes up in flames,
torn apart by old hatreds painted in new colours? What if … this year drifts by
in a haze of coping with life’s daily demands? What if … this year is used up on everything
but turning my dreams into reality? What if … oh, bah! Enough of that doom and
gloom!
Far beneath the surface of my conscious
fears, there is a part of my heart secure in the knowledge that this last year,
marked with mellow times and a lack of worldly achievement, has not been a
waste.
Success doesn’t always lie in a goal one
can measure by counting the trophies on the shelf, the money in the bank or the
imperfect examples of our celebrity heroes and leaders.
Change doesn’t always happen amidst the tumultuous
waves of a tsunami or the violent upheaval of a revolution.
Sometimes the most lasting change lies within
the ebb of an ocean tide gently changing the shape of an underwater rock or the
fleeting awareness that grace and compassion still exist, even if only reflected
in our own actions and choices.
Sometimes that moment which critically
changes our lives happens not outside in the world in which we live, but deep
within our individual souls.
As the waves of change pound us
relentlessly in this coming year, our only danger lies in losing sight of that
which has sustained humankind through millennia of strife and struggle: Hope.
Hope that, whatever happens this year — whatever
unknowns fill up the blank pages of this waiting year — nothing we do, no
matter how trivial or unexpected, will be wasted if we hold onto the faith that,
deep beneath the waves, there is an intricate unfolding of a sacred plan. This
Divine plan may be mysterious and unknowable to us, but Hope tells us that whatever
changes occur in the outside world will, ultimately shift us, both as
individuals and as a society, towards our true direction.
We need to stop fighting the powerful
currents of life that so constantly pummel our societies, our families and our
inner selves. There is space then for Hope to rebirth itself in our hearts and,
although nothing much changes on the surface of our lives, we will change on
the inside. While life drives us crazy
and pushes us into a darker place then we’ve ever been before, Hope will
irrevocably change how we live in that bleak world.
For, resting quietly beneath all the
uproar and pressure of the outside world we cannot escape, there is a place we
can experience a peace which cannot be understood, but only felt. In the deepest
centre of our heart lies our Garden of Eden, the place where God — however we
perceive the Divine Being that guides our frail existence — brings us an
abundance of blessings.
Do these Divine blessings mean this new
year will be smooth sailing, and our ships will eventually dock at Port Paradise-on-Earth?
If anything, the seas of change will be rougher, perhaps even daunting, as the harsh realities of the world we live in
will not go away. There will still be bad news blaring forth from every
possible media source; there will still be constant demands on us. But we go to
this garden within our hearts to create a new wave of change within us: we can
choose to change how we act and react, how we love and how we live.
From this secret place within me, the
same place that has filled me with new dreams and hopes, I hear a whisper that
tells me this past year has been a highly successful year. For slowly, so
slowly I didn’t even know it was happening, I’ve been consumed by a wave of
change no less profound than the dramatic changes wrought by the non-stop action-filled years that
preceded it.
When my mind tells me that I’ve lost control
of my life, the voice in the garden of
my heart comforts me with the knowledge that I’ve surrendered to a Higher
Power. When I think that I’m floating aimlessly, drifting far from the life’s
course I set for myself, I hear in the music of the waves a melody called Hope,
Faith and Love. A song that calms my fears and gives me strength to start
again.
As we embark on the voyage that is this
new year; as we face the waves of change that await, may the same melody of
Hope set you on the true direction of your soul’s journey.