I love the freshness of a new year. Even at my age, the first days continue to be much like how excited I was as a school kid, buying fresh new notebooks. I've upgraded from the notebooks of my school years to a fresh new journal each year. It isn't a diary, by any means, but a place to scribble words, ponderings, thoughts, God-sightings in the ordinary hours of my day and scriptures that soak into my heart. It is a place where perhaps the goodness of your own caring words, as they touch my life, might find a home. Maybe my journal is a glorified "catch-all"! As different as my year has been and as unknown as the new year is, my journal always begins with the same words of reminder that were offered to me by a Cuban-refugee-turned-United Methodist pastor. Alberto Rodriguez gave me these words just a few years before his death:
"There is a mysterious connection
between the hand that writes,
the mind that thinks
and the heart that sees. "
At the beginning of the new year, I place Rev. Rodriguez' words on the inside cover of my fresh new journal along with scripture, Deuteronomy 30:14 "... the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe."
Each year, I begin the page on the day after Ash Wednesday, as a fresh page, symbolizing my prayers to God from the night before (Ash Wed) to move me forward in a new way, to "create within me a clean heart" by the removal of the ashes on my forehead, placing them as a cross on the fresh page of the journal.
The freshness of a new journal always reminds me of the wonderful new start, this clean heart, that comes with God's unfathomable love, grace and mercy. Now do you see why I am excited?
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