A Serene 2014 to You & Yours

Good grief, has it really been five months?

Life is flying by.... That, and the fact that—as I joked with a client months ago—"Blogging feels so...long-form." (Anything more than 140 characters seems like such a colossal imposition on folks' finite reading allowances these days.) Alas, I have not written you since August.

But I'm in a "writerly" mood, finding myself eyeballs-deep ghostwriting for a client and needing a twenty-minute brain-break over lunch. So I'll turn to something simpler: my own thoughts.

 

Here it is...January 7th, 2014. As a dear friend at a New Year party commented, "2014 can't help but be a better year than one with a thirteen in it." Who knows. 2013 was awesome, but it's always a crapshoot, isn't it?

Or, as the philosophical-Oreo-center might say, "Calendars are just arbitrary, mechanistic, ill-fitting templates designed to make sense of seasonal rhythms in ways that nature never intended, so there's no point resolving that the next twelve whatevers would be any different than the last twelve."

But sure, 2014 certainly sounds more fun than 2013. I'll give her that.

 

I sincerely hope that 2013 was a wonderful year for you, and that 2014 will be even better.

I find that as I grow older, my wants and wishes have become simpler.

I still pump and pedal, search and strive, reach and run, but it's fair to say that The Serenity Prayer best captures my heart's desire: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference."

Most of the time, I don't pray FOR THINGS so much as for everything. Rather than some animated Aladdin, I instead view Christ as the one with whom I must be aligned. "Lord, may I seek and see and serve your will today." I pray for contentment, peace, and sometimes understanding, but mostly contentment and peace, because I know that understanding is a bit of a stretch, particularly in this broken world where war, starvation, disease, hate and genocide rage.

I cannot explain 99.99% of what occurs, but I can pray that when it happens, it would somehow be well with my soul. Or that when I cannot reconcile a particular splinter with my nail, that I might find tweezers or some other suitable instrument designed to make things healthier for all involved. 

 

Regardless, I—and we—likely have one goal or another for 2014.

Sure, I pray that if they are God's will they would come true.

But more importantly, I pray that if or when you get some lemons, you can find an outlet for that juicer.