For many of us, New Year’s Eve is a festive time marked by (often
too much) food, drink, and music in the company of someone special. If the
prior year was an unsatisfying one, we celebrate its demise and departure in
hopes that it will somehow exorcise itself from our memory bank. If it was one
of satisfaction and benefit, we give thankful appreciation for the good in our
life.
This festivity is followed on New Year’s Day by a more
sobering day of rest, including a pause for the making of new resolutions for
the forthcoming year. We make our resolutions to help us identify some aspect
of our life we want to do differently, pay more attention to, or enhance in
some manner. Often these center around our body – a promise to
lose weight, to eat healthier, to exercise more. Sometimes we make more
noble resolutions for ourselves: to be more thoughtful, kinder to others, or
more engaged with our community.
Unfortunately, most of these resolutions fail, usually before
the first month of the new year is done. They fail because we do the resolution
part too easily, with little true commitment, confusing “wishing” with setting
realistic goals, all built upon a weak drive of little Purpose. It is Purpose
that gives our resolutions sustaining energy, and Purpose comes from a
necessary investment in Reflection. Time spent in honest and genuine
examination of our life, where we have been, and where we now are. That is why
our first Resolution should always be to spend more time in Reflection.
In Judaism, this idea of Reflection leading to Resolution is
formalized in the annual tradition of the High Holy Days around the Hebrew New
Year. It is a time that honors the 40 days Moses spent with God on Mount Sinai
receiving the replacement set of stone tablets. The first 30-days are spent in spiritual
reflection, introspection, and prayer looking back over the past year. The High
Holy Days then begin with Rosh Hashanah, the start of the New Year. Rosh
Hashanah is the anniversary of the creation of the world, the day when God
passes preliminary judgment on one’s life and determines his/her upcoming fate.
Ten days (“Days of Awe”) are spent meditating on the meaning of the Holidays, identifying
needed changes for one’s better behavior, and asking for forgiveness from those
one has wronged. It ends with Yom Kippur, the holiest “Day of Atonement.” One’s
judgement is thereby sealed based upon one’s atonement and repentance; for
those who have atoned, the new year begins on a clean slate.
These High Holy Days are performed within a specific
structure of prayers, liturgies, readings, ritual and ceremony applicable to
the Jewish tradition. But the intention and structure of these days can be
borrowed and applied to one of any faith or belief system, adapted to one’s own
personal structure and ceremony. It starts with creating deliberate intention
and time to pursue one’s own period of Reflection, Atonement, and Resolution.
Borrowing from the symbolism of Rosh Hashanah, we engage in this period not at
the secular calendar New Year, but annually on our birthday – honoring our own “day
of creation.” We question ourselves as to our life and how we are living it,
not as oppressive judgment but in the spirit of atoning for our missteps, and
changing our course towards fulfilling our better Self.
In meditation or in journaling, we pursue pertinent questions.
For example:
1. What is my life about right now – my surroundings, my
relationships?
2. How has my life
changed over this past year, and what were the significant events?
3. Am I where, and am
I doing, what I had expected at this point in my life?
4. What is not going
well, or has not turned out well, in my life thus far?
5. What immediate
concerns are pressing upon me?
6. What is going
well, or has turned out well, in my life thus far?
7. What immediate
positives are enveloping me?
8. How often do I do
something different than my usual daily routine?
9. What am I secretly
wishing I had time and opportunity to do for myself?
10. Who or what have I harmed, whether intentionally or unknowingly, and how could I have handled it better?
10. Who or what have I harmed, whether intentionally or unknowingly, and how could I have handled it better?
11. In what way, and how often, am I expressing the
spiritual aspect of my life today?
12. RESOLUTION: What do I wish to emphasize in the
forthcoming year, and in what manner, regarding my: family; friendships; job /
career / work / vocation; personal well-being and development; sense of
happiness and completeness; spiritual practice and connection to the Universe.
Out of these answers can come our Resolutions, now infused with insightful Purpose. Resolutions that can have a lasting effect on our lives. Resolutions that give real meaning to our birthday: a life renewed again. May you have happy birthdays and truly meaningful renewals on each anniversary of your creation. Your true New Year.
Out of these answers can come our Resolutions, now infused with insightful Purpose. Resolutions that can have a lasting effect on our lives. Resolutions that give real meaning to our birthday: a life renewed again. May you have happy birthdays and truly meaningful renewals on each anniversary of your creation. Your true New Year.
© 2017
Randy Bell www.OurSpiritualWay.blogspot.com
1 comment:
I love your questions for reflection, Randy. Thanks.
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