New beginnings. New year. The month of January is named after the Roman god Janus, who is portrayed in mythology as person with two faces, one looking backward and one looking forward. By the time this year (any year) is over, most people are ready for a fresh start, a new beginning, a cleansing, a chance to move on and that is what this post is about.

Starting anew

My wife Deena and I are both educators, with more than half a century of teaching experience between us. One of the things we enjoyed about teaching is that the start of each semester represented a new beginning. A clean slate.

The first day of class! Classrooms and hallways received a deep cleaning over the break. Floors were polished, ceiling leaks repaired, graffiti removed. The previous semester might have been difficult because of new administrative policies or procedures to apply, software programs to master, challenging students and so on. But the subsequent semester allowed you to start over. This renewal also applied to students. You might have been the new kid in school in September. But by January, you were a veteran, an old-timer. You might have needed a math component for your degree plan and you struggled mightily with Algebra during the fall. But having doggedly earned a passing grade in your worst subject, you now feel like a great weight has been removed from your shoulders. You are looking for new challenges to match with your awakened confidence.

I often wondered about people who work in offices, shoe stores, supermarkets, warehouses and so on. Monotonous places without windows, without excitement. without special occasions marked by theater productions, concerts, homecoming activities and proms. Whether it is August or September, December or January makes no difference in the workplace to software engineers or electricians. LIfe can be a grind and you lose perspective. Like a traveler with no itinerary, your mind wanders aimlessly. As the Alan Parsons Project put it (Days Are Numbers):

The traveler is always leaving town
He never has the time to turn around
And if the road he’s taken isn’t leading anywhere
He seems to be completely unaware

The traveler is always leaving home
The only kind of life he’s ever known
When every moment seems to be a race against the time
There’s always one more mountain left to climb

Days are numbers
Watch the stars (remember)
We can only see so far
Someday, you’ll know where you are. . .”

I don’t intend to demean honorable positions in the workforce. I’ve worked in retailing, food service, post op and cardiac health care and accounting. There are aways opportunities to make a difference in people’s lives. We should bloom where we are planted. But the burnout rate can be high.

What are your resolutions for the new year?

Where are you now? Where do you want to be a year from now? What if anything are you resolving?

Many people will be making New Years resolutions over the next few days. A lot of people will resolve to lose weight after the holidays. Some may promise themselves to develop a family budget, or to take that vacation they’ve put off for years. Quitting smoking, stopping procrastination and staying fit are other popular resolutions. You might resolve to be nicer to your colleagues or in-laws. Of course, you don’t have to wait until January 1st to make amends, but for some reason that day seems to be preferred. For most people, it is a good time to see where you are headed.

Time (1)

Speaking of time, I thought about what Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes, Chapter 3:

There is a time for everything,
    and a season for every activity under the heavens:

a time to be born and a time to die,
    a time to plant and a time to uproot,
    a time to kill and a time to heal,
    a time to tear down and a time to build,
    a time to weep and a time to laugh,
    a time to mourn and a time to dance,
    a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
    a time to search and a time to give up,
    a time to keep and a time to throw away,
    a time to tear and a time to mend,
    a time to be silent and a time to speak,
   a time to love and a time to hate,
   a time for war and a time for peace.“

True, Solomon does not say there is a time to make New Years resolutions and a time to break them. But as we’ll see in the following paragraphs, New Years Day simply represents an opportunity in time.

Time (2)

I’ve examined the concept of time in other posts on this blog in terms of the fourth dimension. We do not have complete access to the fourth dimension, and only have a partial understanding of it. We think of time pulling us in one direction (towards the future) like a river current pulls branches and leaves downstream. If while standing on a riverbank we see someone in danger approaching us, caught in the current, we may have only one occasion to save that person. Jumping in too soon or too late could mean we’d never reach them. So, our timing must be precise. The same goes for a small child crossing a busy street by themselves. Timing is everything.

There are Hebrew and Greek words that apply to the Old Testament (Masoretic text and the Septuagint) which we translate into English as “time.” One noun for time deals with a underfined period of duration while the other noun refers to a precise occasion. For example, we might say that the planting season in the northern hemisphere runs from March until May. That is a period of duration. However, some specific plants like tropical hibiscus cannot be planted until after the last frost, which might be in March, or April, May, perhaps even June. That refers to a precise occasion. As Cambridge notes on the use of these nouns:

So here the thought with which the new [Chapter Three in Ecclesiastes] opens is that it is wisdom to do the right thing at the right time.”

Another example: I spent forty-three years in Texas, and for most of that time, I taught courses in Texas history and government. During the Texas War of Independence, the battle of Gonzales was fought and lost against Mexico in October 1835 and the decisive battle at San Jacinto was won by Texas in April 1836. Those six months were the season for war. But the opportunity for Sam Houston to win the war did not present itself until April 21, 1836. The provisional congress of Texas wanted Houston to attack Santa Ana in late 1835 or early 1836, but Houston knew the occasion was not right. He needed more time to train his army.

Houston was not impetuous, and you don’t want to be, either. Having a baby before the age of forty might be the right thing for a married couple, but is now the right time? If one clause is true but the other is not, then you need to rethink your plan.

New beginnings does not necessarily mean new circumstances. I’ve taken beaten old shoes to a shoe repair shop and they were returned to me almost as good as new. There was a time in my life before I met Deena when I used to buy new cars impulsively because I was bored sitting at the dealer waiting for an oil change or wheel alignment on my present vehicle. The service manager would say “I’m busy today, but I can have you out of here in three hours.” Three hours? <sigh.> I’d walk over to the sales department and ask how long it would take for me to get in a new car and for me to drive away. If it would take less than three hours, I would sometimes exercise that option, probably because I was not willing to invest myself in a perfectly good, faithful vehicle. But I learned that this was not a healthy way to go through life. As they say in Texas, “You dance with those what brung you.” So, a New Years resolution might be to re-evaluate your circumstances with the goal of making these ties even stronger in the future, rather than foreclosing on the present. To achieve this, you may need to ask for forgiveness from others, or accept requests for forgiveness from others, even as God forgives us when we come to Him. And we need not wait until January 1, 2024 or or January 1, 2025. In II Corinthians 6:2, God says “now (νῦν) is the time of God’s favor, now (νῦν) is the day of salvation.” This term for “now” (νῦν) means “emphatically now” at the present time, not during some future undefined period of duration. Houston as a trained military officer knew when the time was right to attack. Not a month too soon, and not a day later when Santa Ana might have entrenched in a stronger position and the tide of battle gone against the Texans.

Rain

Rain as a literary device can mean many different things, whether used by Ernest Hemingway in “A Farewell to Arms,” John Steinbeck in “To a God Unknown” or T.S. Eliot “The Waste Land” It can often symbolize:

. . . life and growth regarding birth and rebirth. And in literature, life is formed when rain appears; it suggests a spiritual birth as well.”

Rain is also symbolic of the Holy Spirit and the renewal that occures in our hearts when we come to faith.

Rain, then, can represent cleansing and renewal (as in the “Shawshank Redemption.”) Picture the couple in the featured photo. They appear to be in love with each other and the moment, but who knows what they had to overcome to reach this point? Forgiving, forgetting, the process of healing can be very painful and I don’t want to minimize the process. But if it makes you a better person or throws open the doorways to happiness, then perhaps it is worth enduring.

I wish everyone the very best for this coming new year!!!