January 2009
“A New Year”
New Year is a time when we often look back at what has happened and look forward with expectation as to what the year to come will bring. In my work as a counsellor I often try to help people unravel their past. The only reason for looking into someone’s past, from a therapeutic point of view, is if it contains things which impede progress. For some people the past is rather like the chains which Marley’s ghost dragged with him through Charles Dickens's “A Christmas Carol”. As a Christian I think there are two reason for considering the past. Firstly, it’s by no means all bad. There are things I want to thank God for when I look back at 2008 - my son finished university and got a first and, perhaps more important, a job; I had a sabbatical which was a very creative time; I turned sixty; I continue to be surrounded by a loving family and many kind friends. I guess you too could produce your own list. One of the reasons why religion exists is the human need to say thank you - thank you to a bountiful and loving God. I also made some mistakes (I am not going to list those!) and I need to learn from them but I do so in the knowledge that my bountiful God is a forgiving God who does not expect me to get it right all the time but does require me to be humble and realistic about my life and forgives me when I confess my faults and failings. I leave you to make your own list and your peace with your maker. Enough of the past, what of the future?
New Year is a time to look forward. In my therapy work, particularly when I am assessing someone's suitability for counselling or psychotherapy I ask them if they can see a future for themselves. Those who cannot are usually profoundly depressed and in need of help. Carl Jung, my therapeutic mentor and inspiration, said that those who see a future are psychologically healthy. He applied this to the elderly (something which somehow has become more relevant having got my bus pass!) adding that this may seem surprising as the very elderly must know that time is short. For the Christian the future is something to look forward to because it is always there be it experienced in time or in eternity. Christ’s love and redeeming work releases the believer from the chains of the past and from the failures that may haunt us and releases us into a new future. Knowing that God is a forgiving Father the believer can afford to take risks and make a creative experiment with his or her life.
I would like to encourage you to trust in God for the future; commit this New Year to Him and let Him lead and encourage you to live life to the full; don’t be chained to the past. There may well be many challenges ahead for each of us but we can rise to them. One of my favourite passages in the Bible is the rather quaint saying which goes something like this “with the help of my God I can leap over a wall”. Might I also be permitted to commend someone to your prayers. Last year the people of America voted a new president into office, an office he will take up early in the New Year. Barack Obama was hailed as the first Black president. I have just read his autobiography “Dreams From My Father”. It is a story of his own struggle for an identity as the product of a white American mother and a Black Kenyan father (whom he only met once). He has taken on the role of the world’s most powerful man and what must be the most difficult job on the planet particularly at this time of economic crisis. As you pray for yourself and those you love and commend this New Year to God please pray for him and his family that they may be kept safe and that he may lead the world’s greatest super power with humility and wisdom.
A very happy New Year to you all - Fr Mick
