New year, new hope, new blessings
“Unprecedented” seems to be the universal adjective for this past year. Unfortunately, nothing seemed too unprecedented in a good way. It seemed to all be bad. Politicians and diseases, and diseased politicians, poisoning the common well so to speak. All in all, it made for a rough year. But now it is over. Now we are in a new year. Now we can make it better.
I would like to think we learned a few things last year, which we can use to make this year, and ourselves, better. For one thing, we learned the importance of people. People like nurses, grocery store stockers, delivery drivers and other “essential workers.” This is a lesson we should carry with us into the new year: to appreciate what we have and the people who bring it to us would be one way to make the new year better than the last.
Thankfulness in general might be another way to make improvements. While the day-to-day grind of getting by can sometimes cause us to forget things or forget the importance of things, nothing focuses the mind like the daily threat of plague or pandemic. Maybe someone is trying to remind us to reorder our priorities, to stop and give thanks, and to not take the blessings we have for granted. Perhaps it is a lesson worth learning.
There is an old Cherokee tradition that teaches us this lesson. If the people abuse and mistreat each other, the Great Spirit will withdraw his blessing from the land. This tradition comes to us from a time of great upheaval in Cherokee society. During this time of trouble tradition tells us, seven elders went up on the mountain for a time of fasting and prayer. After seven days a messenger of the Great Spirit appeared to them and gave them the teachings that today we call “The White Path.” They say that in those days some people had forgotten the Creator’s original instructions. They say that the people forgot to care for one another, that they became selfish and uncivilized. They say that the priests who ruled in those days became corrupt and led the people down a dark road.
In many ways we see the same thing today. We see politicians and preachers misleading and lying to the people and leading them astray for their own selfish ends. It is slow and subtle, so like the proverbial frog in the pot, we often do not notice until we wake up and find ourselves where we never thought we would be. Communities and families so divided and hatreds sown so deep that they lack the resiliency to survive storms and plagues and other tribulations.
Let us learn from this past year. Let us learn the lesson of the “essential worker” that lesson being that we need each other. A truck load of toilet paper and a thousand rounds of ammunition will not save you when what you need is a nurse with a healing touch.
Let us each pray to the Great Spirit in our own way that we will learn this lesson. Let us pray that in 2021 we find unity instead of division, understanding in place of hatred, blessing in place of pandemic.
Most of all, let us learn the lesson taught us by the Lord Christ. We show our love for God by loving our fellow humans. Let us learn this lesson and look to this new year with new hope and a prayer for new blessings.