Beginnings are chancy things, and it is simple historical accident that the New Year and Christmas fall so close to each other. The church in Rome chose one date, the Eastern Church chose another, and some Christian traditions give it no place at all. The date of Christmas for the Roman Church was likely a bid to found a competing winter holiday in the 4th century under the Roman Emperor Constantine who wanted to establish Christianity as the state religion.
Still, what are we to do with these two new beginnings so close to each other? Christmas usually feels like it pulls us backwards in remembrance, while the New Year pulls us forward. By now in our journey this sounds like Kierkegaard’s two guides for our life. If you participated in that meditation, you will have experienced that these two movements are always blended. Every kind of looking back entails an approach toward the future. Every kind of looking forward is based in a narrative constructed from our past.
This is what gives both promise and peril to new beginnings. The fervor of the new beginning is dangerous. In the rush to commitment, we are often led astray by denial of, or inattention to, our history of weakness and limitation. We generate false hope in ourselves and in others of our speedy reform. The monastics have it right: both wholesale renovation and seemingly minor adjustment need more than simple willpower to lead to success.
The phrase itself suggests the thin reed on which New Year’s resolutions are grounded: resolve, our own sheer willpower. Willpower is easily depleted, and often fails when it is most needed. Within this failure is hidden the good news: it is always about beginning again. Monastics in all religious traditions teach us that deep reform comes from the slow practice of only doing the next thing, assuredly not getting it right, and then trying again.
This is helpful perspective, but doesn’t trying again require perseverance? You will not find the answer in resolutions and willpower. They are false friends. The good news about perseverance is that it turns on failure. In order to begin anew, one must need a beginning. In order to get up, one must have first fallen down.
Falling Down, Getting Up
A woman visited a city to stay for several months. While there, she regularly walked through one quarter of the city that contained a monastery. She saw monks leaving and entering the walled enclosure and began to wonder what it was that went on behind the closed doors. One day the large wooden doors were open. Perhaps it was a feast day, but there was a monk standing there at the gate. So she walked up to him and said, “I have often passed your doors and wondered what it is you do in the monastery. Can you tell me?” The monk smiled and thought for a while, and then said “Well, we fall down, and then we get up. Then we fall down, then we get up again.”
This lovely story from the book Tales of a Magic Monastery helps us to see that our successes are grounded in the experience of failure. Perseverance does not require perfection. That way leads to despair. Instead, it requires grace. The monk smiled.
The poetry of Dietrich Bonhoeffer we shared with you at the turn of the year still reminds us of this strong support: As we walk into the new year, we are lovingly surrounded by gentle powers, and we can endure, come what may. The God of Christmas, God-with-us, fragile human and gentle power, is with us in our dark night and in our morning, and certainly in every moment we fall down. You are not alone, and you are offered the grace to get up again.
Embrace the falling down, and the grace you are offered to begin again.
Some questions for your New Beginnings
We will always fall down. Indeed, it is necessary. But grace is available to not despair, to gently cradle hope and to get up again and continue. The gentle powers, and even our own perseverance, are more evident in how we get up again than in how long we manage to walk without falling.
What fear keeps me from beginning again this year?
When I fall down, how can I remind myself of the gentle powers that surround me?
What ritual can I establish to remind me of grace when I fall down?
Look kindly on times you fell down last year. What insight might you draw from that experience?
(c) A. Furchert
A Blessing for your Beginning Again
Do not lose heart my friend.
You cannot do everything at once.
You can only do the next thing.
What is the next thing?
It is always prayer,
It is always singing,
It is always god-with-us.
May you find grace in your falling this new year
so that, in getting back up, may you learn to walk somewhat farther
and fall again with somewhat more grace.
CH
This post is part of our 12 Days of Christmas Series 2020/21: Cradling Hope, a Contemplative Journey towards the heart of Christmas. You can still enroll and follow along. To enter our virtual gathering space click here. To share your thoughts with us, write us here or comment below. To offer your gift for this journey, click here. If you are looking for personal consultation, visit our PathFinder.
Thank you for sharing this text with some one who might enjoy it.
Peace and Blessings, Almut & Chuck