Time to Turn the Page

ISLAND IMPRESSIONS

BY FR. TOM PURDY, RECTOR OF CHRIST CHURCH

Some years are better than others. There are also portions of years that are better than others. A troubling period can color the whole calendar in some cases.

The opposite is also true. We can have years that are just the best. Ever. Or there can be a certain event that was so joyful that the glow that follows it continues to bring a smile to our face each time we think about it. As we prepare to turn the page on 2018, many of us are engaging in a review of the year, whether we are doing it with great intention or somewhat subconsciously.

Every year that winds down brings with it the mandatory retrospectives: Who did we lose this year in Hollywood? What were the biggest hits on the charts? How did a certain market perform? Our retrospectives may be more mundane: How many days were the kids late because we couldn’t get organized in the morning? How many socks are in the linen closet without a match? How many books are still on the nightstand waiting to be read? It’s natural to see the year as a unit to be evaluated, measured, and contemplated.

The annual calendar marking one year is somewhat arbitrary. True, it’s a measurement of the earth’s trip around the sun. The marking of the time, however, is a human construct. Life goes on as days, weeks, months, and years go by. Seasons are malleable, when not measured by the calendar, as migrations, hibernations, blooms, and precipitation do their own thing. They don’t seem too concerned about what exact day or week it is. I’ve yet to find a creature in the wild that celebrates its birthdays or sets off fireworks for New Year’s.

Nonetheless, our annual measurement of the passing of time is helpful. For one, it means we can get our AARP discount at the appointed time. More helpful, however, is the sense of beginnings and endings that each year brings. Such endings and beginnings allow us to do a reset of sorts. We can evaluate distinct periods in our life and learn more easily from them having subjected them to some sort of limitation. Where things might too easily blend and blur into one long lifetime, we can visit waypoints and take measurements. This is, inevitably, a good thing.

There is a lot of history behind the location of some of the things on our annual calendars, and there is not room here to discern and debate how and why the last weeks of every year came to house Thanksgiving and Christmas, Hanukkah, and so many other celebrations. Some of it is seasonal, based on natural events, some of it is purely historical. (Spoiler alert: Jesus wasn’t born on December 25!) I, for one, think that however these things came to pass, their placement is just about perfect.

As we enter into the final weeks of every year, people in this country are still working off extra pounds from their Thanksgiving feasts, but more importantly, are carrying the glow of a season of thanksgiving. We have been gifted with the opportunity to focus on and celebrate our gifts and blessings. That season flows directly into Christmas, a season that, for me as a Christian, births hope and God’s faithfulness into the world from that manger we all learned about in Sunday School. The incarnation of the love of God, and the life it brings, is perfectly timed to arrive at the moment we are playing through our recordings of the year passed.

It is hard to get lost in our worst parts, our failures, and our losses when we are invited to be thankful for all our blessings and then look towards the new year and the world we live in with the hopeful eyes that accompany the religious messages that many of us encounter. We can celebrate and grieve what has happened in the previous twelve months, but we cannot get lost there. We are invited to raise our eyes to the horizon and face the rising sun and the dawn of a new day, a new year, and maybe even a new era. Turning the page on our calendars can be a gift. May it be so this year for you.