May you look back on the year, and feel a sense pride. May you remember the strength of your character, the resilience of your spirit, and the inherent worth of your being. May you know that you are a part of an ecosystem, and that your life is sustained by countless other living things. May you have gratitude for what has been; for all that you have lost, and all you have gained. May you laugh at your mistakes. May you forgive yourself, and love yourself. May you be resolved to be more fully alive in the year to come; more present in your body, in your mind, and in your heart. And most of all, may you be blessed with unexpected joys, undeniable happiness, and unending compassion in the year to come.
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog…So this was the year that was – in numbers and comparisons. Perhaps more critically, whether view by one or a thousand – I’m grateful that we were here together. Happy New Year all..
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 15,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 6 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
I’d write this to Santa, but being way over the age of majority and Jewish, it would seem remarkably disingenuous to do so. Instead, I’m sending this to the universe, because based on my calculations, it’s large enough to handle a few requests from me.
Hi Universe,
How’s it going where you are? Hopefully well, and you’re approaching the holidays with both anticipation and delight. I hope you get all that you ask for and realize that you already have all that you want. I’m not a big one for lists – I’ve been blessed too many times over to look at a gifted life and seek more.
And yet.
There are some things I desperately want this year. You see, we’ll be welcoming our first grandchild into the world in February, and while I spend a ridiculous amount of time wondering what our relationship will be like, I’m spending more time perseverating about the world she will be joining. And there’s some work we really need to do.
– This year I want the world to work on forgiveness. If we’ve done something wrong – to the world or to an individual – let’s own it, apologize, forgive and learn the lesson. I feel emotionally assaulted everyday – whether it is the horrific senselessness of murder and ill-defined parameters of justice; too many homeless for my extra coats to warm; so much vitriol and judgment and too little shared compassion and faith. Anonymous haters spitting venom in virtual environments where pain is the currency and absence of accountability is assured. Can we have a body politic that agrees that a good foundation is one predicated upon us not hurting each other and/or this fragile earth we are only borrowing for a short while? Can we eliminate the ‘yeah, but…’ and replace it with ‘maybe we can’?
– This year I want families and friends to recognize that we can be extensions of our best selves to those we love the most and reflect a better self to those who we may never see again. I want memories to be filled with limitless possibilities that we inspire with the merest of actions, the most innocent of exchanges, a smile.
– I don’t want any more children to be hungry, or cold, or denied the feeling of being held in love and safety.
– I want gratitude to be as contagious as kvetching and just as colorful.
– I want the world’s religions to remember that the shared predicate is love. I’m no scholar, but I’m no fool either. If there is no love as a foundation, what is there to believe?
– This year, I want this whole growing up thing to be a little easier. I thought I’d at least know what I don’t know instead of finding the list increasing and expanding each day…Universe, I ask that we give ourselves the gift of the better part of who we are. Chicken soup for the world, I guess.
“It’s funny: I always imagined when I was a kid that adults had some kind of inner toolbox full of shiny tools: the saw of discernment, the hammer of wisdom, the sandpaper of patience. But then when I grew up I found that life handed you these rusty bent old tools – friendship, prayer, conscience, honesty – and said ‘do the best you can with these, they will have to do.’ And mostly; against all odds, they do.” — Annie LaMott
Waiting for the Karma Truck 