As I write this blog, I am aware of the bin men on the road moving up and down and emptying the huge rubbish accumulated over Christmas. I also see the postman trudging through the snow to offload the letters and parcels for all my neighbours on the street. 

And I see the hard snow on the cars and pavement, and I begin to think about some words of Pope Francis that he spoke recently in the context of this pandemic about ‘how our lives are woven together and sustained by ordinary people…who do not appear on the latest television show, yet in these days are shaping the decisive events of our history…doctors, nurses, supermarket workers, cleaning personnel, caregivers, transport workers, men and women working to provide essential services and public safety…’

What has all this got to do with the topic of New Beginnings you might ask? 

Everything.

As we begin another new year, we are faced with the fact that this one is very very different. How? 

We no longer live in a world where normal certainties exist- the assurance that we can go out and socialise with our friends and remain safe and healthy have slowly disappeared. 

The only certainty this year seems to be the fact that we will be facing uncertainty about a lot of things for a lot of time in the future.

And yes, we need new beginnings. 

Every day when we roll over and somehow manage to reach the floor standing, we are beginning all over again. Somehow. 

New beginnings are important for our relationships. Be they with our family, our friends, with ourselves, or with God, we all need to feel that today is different than yesterday, that it can be better, that I can begin again somehow. 

Beginning again is totally different for everyone because part of beginning again is learning to love again, and we all love in a unique and distinctive way.

And of course, the new beginning starts within ourselves, in our determination (or not) to start again once more for the zillionth time.

But to do this we need faith- faith in the fact that this relationship will work better when I make certain efforts, faith in God (if we believe) that this very difficult situation can be good for us, and can bring about some change for the better…

 

Everyone is in the same boat.

No one has the prerogative when it comes to beginning again. We are all faced with that challenge. 

And there is no recipe for beginning again, it’s not as if we can google and find the method. Our lives are like the plot of a story that unfolds in a way that we do not always understand fully. 

And yet… 

It is good for us to have to begin again. It revitalises us. Re energises our inner life. The consciousness of our interdependence and the power of my effort on the lives of other people is immeasurable. 

Covid 19 may or may not be with us next year. But what is undoubtedly true is that who and what I am today will be there next year and the year after. 

New Beginnings and Change

Leo Tolstoy once wrote: ‘True Life is lived when tiny changes occur.’

New beginnings mean change and change hurts.

However, we all need change. Change is not easy, but without it we lack dynamism, become smug, self-satisfied, fossilise, grow bored…the list is endless.

Without change, we lack the zest to spark any creative output in our lives. Our talents wilt and eventually die.

Life is not a competition or a race. It is not a war or a battle. It does involve effort and struggle, but this can be a joyous thing depending on what attitude we decide to have. 

So let us take control of our day. 

Recently I saw Ryan Tubridy on television stand in front of his audience, sweep his right hand up in the air and say loudly ‘Let’s take control of this virus.’ He actually said it three times. 

It led me to think. He is right. This virus is beginning to take control of our lives.

Let’s take control of our lives, of this day that we have before us, and let’s begin again.  

Let us throw away all anger and bitterness against people, or life or whatever it is that drags us down. 

Let us embrace the situation we have by accepting it fully, and extracting its potential for good. 

Let us begin again to realise the power of our humanity, the power of our smiles, the power of our yesses.