New Years Reflection Sermon

Morning Has Broken, together we just sang about the dawning of a new day. Today is a new day, in a new year. I feel really good about the last one, over all, and have the thrill of anticipation for the new one beginning. It was 10 years ago that we passed into the new millennium. Let us now shift from the past and consider the year future, the new year 2010.

Talking about the future is easy for me, I am not, however, very good at living in the present. I am getting better with help from my family, and from reading Eckhart Tolle’s books like, The Power of Now and A New Earth, but I am not quite there yet. At my core I am a planner; I love to make lists and set goals. Even as a child I lived in the future, planning my way out of a world that was unpredictable. I don’t remember this, but I am told by my step-mother, Marly, that as a six year old, I couldn’t sleep one night because I was worried that by the time I got to grad school, all the good dissertation topics would be taken. I never actually went to grad school to get a doctorate, instead, I went to business school, much to the disappointment of my Maoist father.

When it comes to planning, we are not all alike. Not everyone loves to live in the future and make lists like I do. My husband, for instance, says “ you plan a picnic, … not a life.” When we got married, I was so excited, I couldn’t wait to map out our future together. I think that it was just after the honeymoon, I said, “ lets sit down and do our five year plan”. I had books, forms and templates, everything we needed to fill in. Art’s response, “Ask me in five years, and I’ll tell you what I did.” Opposites must attract because we should have just about completed 3- five-year plans by now. And no, we have never done one together. That doesn’t mean we don’t have one, I just do them. He does provide input, vetos some of my ideas and always has the right to approve or modify the plans. This must work for us as our 15th anniversary will be this July.

Art does have a point. There are things in life that we can’t plan, among them, when we will fall in love, when we will have children and who our children will be. I believe that our partners, children and others are sent to us to teach us the lessons we need in this life. I had planned to marry and have 2 children on a certain time line, and assumed the children would be just like me. It took me a long time to get pregnant with medication and Allison was born 2 months early with complications and challenges I never anticipated. All was not according to my specific plan, but ALL was, and IS perfect. The lesson is: the Divine may have a plan for us that is far greater than anything we, collectively or individually, can ever imagine.

As someone who likes to think she is in control, planning works for me, so well that it is my job description- I am a Financial Planner. The most rewarding part of my job is helping people define their dreams and goals, get them on the right path, and then act as a coach.

A written blueprint helps keep us on track, accountable and focused. Daily choices become easier. Writing things down makes me feel better about managing day-to-day life and long-term goals. It took me most of my life, so far, to figure out that this works with weight management too, and in the past year I have lost over 40 pounds. I did it by setting a goal, figuring out how to get there and usually making good choices. When I stay on my program, I weigh daily, plan my food, schedule my exercise and write down everything I eat. I count every calorie, - yes I mean everything, even the free samples at the grocery store and the cookie and coffee after the service. I have monthly meetings, a blog, and friends as support. I don’t eat unconsciously anymore. Weight loss has been a spiritual journey for me, the exercise and things I need to do, I now see as spiritual practices.

Last year, I gave up resolutions and went to intentions instead. There is a subtle but powerful difference between the two. In the past I made resolutions, broke them after short period of time, then I gave up. Each time a resolution was broken, I’d figure, why bother anymore? An intention is more flexible. It allows for: the fallibility of humans, things beyond our control and divine intervention. One of my intentions last year was to loose weight. I wasn’t perfect, there were ups and downs, but overall I got results. Life and intentions are not about a straight line to get to a destination. They are about knowing where you are going – the general direction- and being really clear about the choices you make but not beating yourself up when you slip.

I invite you now to think about what you want in your future. Close your eyes and imagine that we are 3 years from now, in the year 2013, and you are completely satisfied with your life. Look back over the last three years. What exactly happened during those three years to get you to this point?

Erich will play for a few minutes, take this time reflect on how you want to live in the coming year and beyond. Think about those things you hope to deepen, or open up to in the future. In your Order of Service is a folded piece of paper—green, the color of growth. It is titled “A Note to Myself.” Open it and there is space for you write down your intentions for 2010 on one side, and on the other side what you want to have in your life in 2013.

This little green note is yours to keep, to place in your purse or pocket, and when you arrive home, perhaps to put someplace where you will come across it from time to time. I will ring the chime as a one-minute warning. [5 minutes of MUSIC, with sounding of the chime after 4 minutes]

This part of the service is the easiest for me. I love to plan and live in the future. Now after some lessons from the Universe, my lifelong belief in the power of goal setting and envisioning is tempered a bit by the acute awareness that we don’t get to live in the future. We can set goals and plan for the future, but we only get to live in the present. My prayer for each of us is that we live in the present moment mindfully, that we listen to each other deeply, and that we hold each other in compassion and in love.

Now, Bob will light a candle for all of us, to symbolize the intentions we have written down for the future. As we watch it’s flickering light during the remainder of this service, may it also serve as a reminder to all of us that if we want to live in a certain way—with more compassion, for example—that it is best to do so today. For in the present is our only life. Happy New Year!

“The Paradox of Time,” is from Eckhardt Tolle’s The New Earth. Time is seen as the endless succession of moments, some “good,” some “bad.” Yet, if you look more closely, that is to say, through your own immediate experience, you find that there are not many moments at all. You discover that there is only ever this moment. Life is always now. Your entire life unfolds in this constant Now. Even past or future moments only exist when you remember or anticipate them, and you do so by thinking about them in the only moment there is: this one. Everything seems to be subject to time, yet it all happens Now. That is the paradox. There is no time, Now is all there ever is.