Photo by Kevin Dooley, Flickr Creative Commons

Today is New Year’s Eve, although I prefer to think of it as Old Year’s End. Our culture glorifies the new, worshipping the latest trend, the vigor of youth, the newest products. We start forming our “resolutions” for the New Year and eagerly look ahead to what’s next… what’s new. We are urged to leave the old behind us–to forget and move on.

In the words of the Counting Crows, its been “A long December and there’s reason to believe maybe this year will be better than the last.”

The word resolution has come to mean, at this time of year, “the act of determining” (thanks Webster). And I will think – tomorrow – about what I determine to add or take away from my life. Good habits I’m determined to form. Bad habits I’m determined to expunge. I think it’s a good practice, as long as we don’t treat it as a complete make-over. As long as we are realistic and care-full and kind with ourselves. (More about that – if I have time – tomorrow.)

Today, however, I want to take a moment to think about the year past. Because the word resolution is also about answering, about “solving again.” There is a cyclical reconsidering implied, and its etymology carries connotations of loosening and releasing. And there are things I need to answer for myself about this year. Things I need to loosen and release.

2014 was a good year in many ways. I am so happy with my new job at Columbia Bible College. It’s such a good fit for me and we have enjoyed reconnecting with our BC friends (and having a book budget!). But leaving Bon Accord has meant that we left a tight church community, that we no longer live in the vicinity of my family, and that my husband is currently unemployed. There is deep sadness in all of these things. Sadness that I need to take time over. There was also a release, in 2014, of our struggle with infertility. That is something I will need to reprocess, rethink, “resolve,” every year, I think, before I can dive into the next one. I need to ask again the question of how one fulfills a calling to parenthood without the gift of children. 2014 was also a year that brought joy and extreme sorrow and pain to some of our family and friends. Those joys and griefs are weighty – and as such they, too, deserve my time and reflection. I need to answer, to solve the question of how the good and the bad of this year have/will change me. Of how to loosen and release those joys and sorrow – not to forget or to “move on” – but to see them as a part of myself that I can carry forward rather than a weight that pulls backward. I need to loosen my self-concern and consider how to lift my head to care for my community. I need to pursue the question of how to continue to grieve and celebrate well – for myself and with others.

Photo by Ginny, Flickr Creative Commons

So today – as the old year fades away – maybe take a quiet moment to yourself to reflect on 2014. To pray. To resolve. To loosen and release any chokeholds. To ask the Spirit some of the burning questions the year has raised. To listen for God’s answer, however hard it is to understand.

Then raise a glass to the joy and sorrow – toast the old year, in all its spotted-glory, before you ring in the new.