Welcome to 2013!

I used to get the post-Christmas doldrums. With the brightness and beauty of the Christmas season passed, January seemed almost a mourning season. It doesn’t help that it is also the darkest month of the year characterized by difficult weather in NE Ohio.

But as my prayer life deepened over the years, I came to appreciate the quiet, uneventful month of January as a time to take stock of my life in a prayerful, discerning way. For many, it is a time of self-evaluation, hence the tradition of New Year’s Resolutions. Of course we now know the science of New Year’s Resolutions. Most people don’t follow through on them!

So I abandoned the idea of New Year’s Resolutions and adopted the idea of New Year’s Practices. I set myself a task for the entire year to pray around one single theme. One year it was the Beatitudes. Another year it was the Course in Miracles. Last year was Reframing Life…learning how to look at life from a different perspective, a more compassionate perspective, or a more hopeful perspective; reframing my idea about work, relationships, finances, possessions etc. You can make the whole year about compassion or freedom or surrender or humility.

This idea can give a focus to your prayer life, provide fodder for meditation. It won’t necessarily change your life in any dramatic way. It’s not magic. It’s a tool that can deepen your conversation with God, raise your awareness of your soul’s purpose in the world, make you more attentive to the world around you, increase your sense of compassion and connectedness to the struggles and woundedness of others, as you examine your own struggles and woundedness through these various themes.

I love this time of year, because I have learned that while it may be dark and cold and windy outside, there is a joy and warmth and delight that can be found in the quiet regions of the heart as it communes with the things of the Spirit.

Syndie Eardly