Five Rejuvenating Resolutions for 2020

Welcome to a brand new year and decade. Something wonderful is coming into being.

In a world that often seems bent on dashing our hopes, we triumph over all that today. It presents us with an opportunity to reflect on what we have done or failed to do and then dispose of them by resolving to make changes. It's time to be reborn, restored, renewed, and rejuvenated.

To say that I grew up in the woods is an exaggeration.  But in a sense, much of my growing up did take place in a small wooded area behind Schlarman High School in Danville, Illinois.  My friends and I played there, season in and season out, for most of my formative boyhood.  I learned about expanding imagination.  I learned about being invisible.  I learned that nature is sacred.

There was a sundial in the backyard of the old Tyson mansion in my woods. It stood on a pedestal in little nook overlooking Lake Vermilion and had the inscription that carried Robert Browning’s words.

Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, the last of life, for which the first was made.

The poetry was confusing, haunting, and almost scary back then. My best friend and I would be chasing butterflies or heading back to work on our hidden fort and I would often stop to look at that old sundial. "Grow old along with me!” I would think; “Now that's stupid...who wants to get old anyway?"  Then I would run on.

Now that I am have officially achieved elderhood, the wisdom of the sundial makes more sense. The best is always coming. And each of us is someone new. The best of life, of love, and of all that God has to offer is at hand if we just open up to the possibilities. Then, we can squeeze every drop out of our moments and let them fall where they may. Some will evaporate and some will become rainbows.

Here are my five rejuvenating resolutions (offered for rainbow making);

1. Speak Kindly

2. Listen Carefully

3. Forgive Generously

4. Hug and Hold Hands

5. Celebrate, Laugh, and Dance

Happy 2020. May you be forever young as you grow old along with me.

The True Meaning of the Holidays (And Those 5 Golden Rings)

Today is known by some as the Fifth Day. It isn't widely celebrated nowadays, but there is good reason to give it another look.

We have been bombarded by familiar holiday songs for the past several weeks. One played over and over is The Twelve Days of Christmas. With partridges in pear trees, pipers piping, and lords-a-leaping, we sing along wondering what in the world it all means. Some say it represents secret Roman Catholic teaching during times of persecution. Whatever the origin, when we come to the fifth of those days, the true lover (God) brings the gift of five golden rings.

One explanation of this has stayed with me over the years. Bob Brown, a psychology professor of mine at Kishwaukee College used the metaphor to explain the relationship between our five basic human senses of touch, sight, hearing, smell, and taste which allow us to better understand the world around us, and what King Henry VIII called the five "inward wits" of instinct, imagination, fantasy, estimation, and memory.

While not the premiere of a new holiday tradition, FX’s new A Christmas Carol taps into the story’s promise of spiritual renewal..

Bob taught that the five rings become golden when all ten senses are engaged, hence connecting our outer and spiritual selves. This, he maintained was the essence of a healthy psyche. He certainly had a good point. When we are completely in tune with physical reality and our deeper stirrings, we are likely to be quite well balanced. It could be that the Fifth Day is a gift which points us toward a more enlightened way of living in the coming new year and new decade.

There is a new version of Charles Dickens classic story "A Christmas Carol" presented this year on FX cable channel. It's a spooky departure from the original tale of Ebenezer Scrooge's dark night of the soul. For those 'Scrooge purisits' among us, their artistic license has stretched itself to a breaking point.

In it, Ebenezer is a victim of childhood trauma by his father and chronic sexual abuse at the hands of his school headmaster. He acts out and survives his victimization by relying only on his five basic senses. But driven by resentment and lack of any emotions, Scrooge's cruel acts cost others dearly and doom him to a bleak solitary life. Like too many of us, he is able to justify amoral behavior as a byproduct of financial gain and success. Whatever the consequences, they are chalked up as unforeseen and unintentional.

It is the job of Jacob Marley and three spirits (Past, Present, and Future) to not only make him face his responsibilities, but to imbue him with legitimate feelings and a sense of connectedness. His redemption doesn't end as the story closes. And the writers make it very clear that those same spirits have plenty of work to do with each of us. Merging ten senses into five golden rings, it seems, requires quite a bit of work. But it is a gift that enables our physical and spiritual lives to explode with new meaning.

The calendar is bringing us closer to year and decade end.

In the next couple of days, we have a unique opportunity to get serious about what we would like to make of ourselves. An imaginary clean slate is waiting for the words we will write and those that will be written about us. The choice is ours. Will it be a headlong plunge into grasping for more or could it be a wading into transformative self discovery leading to kindheartedness? One will lead to an ending and the other will lead to a becoming. Dickens reflection of what might happen is a treasure.

Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world...May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!