Faith Hope and Fiction Blog

A Year of Abundance and Hope

Posted on Friday, January 01, 2010

            A flock of birds settled into the ornamental cherry tree outside my window to feast on the red berries in the bare branches. They were mostly starlings, ugly black pests that scavenge everything insight, but on a bitter cold January morning this twittering sign of life was welcome. Smaller birds—chickadees, I think—joined them—snatching the fruit with their quick little beaks.

            It was a sign, a symbol: abundance in the midst of winter's scarcity.

            This is my image for 2010 thus far, a hopeful omen for a good year. After the fear of 2008 and the uncertainty of 2009 I am more than cautiously optimistic about this year—and foolish enough to banish Murphy's Law from my mind to declare it so. A new year is what we make of it, and I choose to make mine a good one.

            We celebrated the New Year with friends, a party that crowded the kitchen and living room as we huddled like those birds around the food prepared and the dishes brought to pass. No one sat at the long dining room table, preferring instead to gather more casually in chairs in the living room or to lean against the kitchen counter.   

         Now we are two days into 2010. My new calendar spreads a fresh page on my desk. (I cannot give up my paper calendar, not for all the electronics in the world.) My handwriting is neatly legible, the first marks on an unblemished surface like tracks across fresh-fallen snow. I look at the pages ahead and wonder what notations will populate them. What projects, get-togethers, vacations, and appointments will fill up the blank columns? The emptiness of it holds excitement and promise.

            I know that there is no difference between this week and last; that the divisions between 2009 and 2010 are artificial. And yet elliptical orbits around the sun and the linear march of time have to be delineated somehow. We chose to mark it off in years, groupings of 365 ¼ days, with a party at the end of one and resolutions for the start of another.

            This year, I'm foregoing the promises to myself and others to do more, less, better, faster, slower, cleaner, and more dutifully organized… I'm going to do the best I can and try to be kind to myself and others each day. And when I fail, which I most certainly will do, I'll ask for forgiveness, give and accept hugs, and move on. I will not cling to scarcity in my thoughts, believing that only perfection will earn me what I deeply long for. No, there is enough love and acceptance to go around. All I have to do is look around and it is there, like bright red berries on a bare branch, waiting to be picked and savored.

            Happy New Year!