Turning a New Leaf . . . What Potential?

January 1, 2012 – Dallas

We will open the book.  Its pages are blank.  We are going to put words on them ourselves.  The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day. 

Edith Lovejoy Pierce, an English poet whose life and work has been condensed on the Internet with this one quote, is a kindred spirit. Her sketch of New Year’s Day is how I feel starting a new journal -- and I am about to begin the twenty-fifth year of journaling. This year could be a big change again (Opportunity) perhaps like the 1^st of January 2005  was: a time of an unforeseen relocation, and uprooting. 

I’ve selected this year a small yellow leather calendar diary – a “desk journal” -- that will accompany me everywhere.  Its part is to remind me of the years, months, and days and keep track of all I hope to do. It will be  a companion when I wait alone in restaurants for friends; an aide memoire to what I am learning – and with its world maps, a concise tutor showing me how slight I am on this wonder-full planet!  Seven years ago, I began using these elegant little volumes, replacing the colorful spiral-bound notebooks that had been my companions. Whether spiral or leather bond, the first page – crisp and unstained with coffee, tears, or sly squiggles made by my children or grandchildren, each promised a fresh start.  

The birds are molting. If only man could molt also -- his mind once a year its errors, his heart once a year its useless passions. - James Allen (British philosophical thinker, author of As a Man Thinketh.) 

Maybe that’s the reason for resolutions?

I start 2012 with no resolutions – Oscar Wilde described them as checks “that men draw on a bank where they have no account.” But I start with a few regrets – as some once kvetched: “It wouldn’t be New Year’s Day with no regrets!” The journals remind me – when I write honestly – how my regrets are better goads to good judgment than highfalutin promises!  

But today, as of now, no scribbling accuses me.    Today, I feel as Harold Acton, a British author in mid -20^th century wryly observed:   

So often is the virgin sheet of paper more real than what one has to say, and so often one regrets having marred it. 

The sheer beauty of this day in Dallas – brimming with sparkly sunshine and cool air – fills the senses with hope. The trees, now leaf-less, don’t seem barren, as they might seem on a gray chilly day. (Vivaldi’s WINTER ) No, they seem like a mom in the early stages of pregnancy – shyly announcing a time when new LIFE will delight and enchant, driving away despair and worry that the news of this day foretells -- coming economic woes, political and religious battles; plus the knowledge that friends are coping with unexpected stuff. 

Today, the glass is half full! A day of small beginnings is nothing to despise! (Zechariah 4:10 )

We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room-by-room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched.  Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives . . . not looking for flaws, but for potential.  ~Ellen Goodman   

The HOPE of potential!

Oh – the amaryllis survived our separation – and has yet to bloom – Maybe another week before the natural Christmas decoration will come forth?

  So, dear reader -- May all [our] troubles last as long as your New Year's resolutions! ~Joey Adams – comedian. And may the memory of God's gift in Christ be a comfort and help -- much more than any journal could be -- and as fresh and lovely as the amaryllis promises to be.