It's All The Same Year

As the world turns, nothing changes unless I change. The label for the 525,600 ticks of a clock from midnight 12/31 to midnight 12/31 is 2009. I can begin to use a brand new calendar tomorrow. In fact, there are multiple calendars to start using tomorrow; electronic on my desk top, my lap top, my phone, paper on my wall at the apartment, and the one I keep in my coat pocket...there are more, I'm sure. A new day is dawning. A New Year. Whew. Can I walk away from the old one the way I walk away from a road kill varmint?

A few hundred days plus ago didn't we do the same thing? 2008 was looking shiny and new, '07 was haggard...but it was once brand new too. A week ago we were concerned about what Santa had seen---were we naughty or nice? Oh, the resentments in the past. How would Santa judge my self righteousness? My selfishness? I assured him it was all justifiable behavior. I had a right, you know.

The delusion is that tonight I can turn the page. It's all brand new. The pages are crisp and clean. White slates to be filled in with happy times and good deeds. My intentions are just. My actions will surely be noble. There is no page to turn.

The future is as unsettling as is my past uncomfortable. Can I live in the past? Can I live in the future? One foot in 2009, one foot in 2008. One foot in the crisp pages of tomorrow, the other in the smudges of yesterday. .

When I stand where I am--in the moment, I see what Janis Joplin said: "It's all the same f---in' year, maannn." What she was saying, I think, is this: I can't disown my past and I can't expect a different result in the future if nothing but the calendar changes. I have to change. Be the change I want to see in the world. I pray for certain character deficiencies to be lifted. To make that happen, my actions have to be different from my tendencies.

Today is tomorrow. The day will not change. I change by my actions. I have a choice today, because of the grace of God. There was a day when I had no choices.

Anonymous commented: WHATEVER TOM. No objection from me. None whatever.