A time to pause

Many can’t believe the year is about to be over once again. And I join them, scratching my head saying... “Really, where did the year go?” We’re even in the frenzy of dutiful partying, celebration and holiday gimmicks that tradition dictates. Under the bustle of the holiday season, at the time when the wind takes on a nip, and the nights extend longer, there is the winding down of another year, another part of our lives dissolving into memories.

The speed by which life is going makes us return to moments of the year that brought us the deepest joys, or its reverse, the deepest pain that perhaps continues to carry us in the process of transformation. This move into reflection is like stepping back from the noisy harried time-driven world, where we have the circus of power struggles, the drama of financial difficulties we know will get even more challenging in the coming year, and the threat of our world under the siege of global warming. It is important that we step back and reflect, precisely because such a reflection empowers us to see that which was essential in our past year. Where did we put all our time and energies? Did we bring energy to other people’s lives to enrich it and deepen it? Or did we bring energy into dividing, fighting and defining that which we think is solely ours?

Where did we allow our minds to take flight from? From inspirations, new ideas, new undertakings... Or did it dwell in the old, tired, sorry states of patterns we have held from habits of the past? To who did we plug our circuits to this year? People who held us up to grow, or were we unable to unplug from energy vampires and others who refuse to even refine themselves. Did we refuse to move in this year? All these questionings serve but one purpose. If our physical life here on earth is to be defined by milestones, then let these be milestones of the Spirit: achievements and moments, people and situations that made the deepest Light and Peace within us shine through. If we have defined our year by how much we have lost or made, how high we have climbed or could not climb, then sadly, we miss out on the greatest journey that we are undergoing: that of truly living out lives consciously and creatively.

This year-end reflection is a beautiful time to also think of peace... so sadly lacking amidst the war, conflicts, terrorists threats and pervading energy of fear in our world. The holiday greeting of “peace on earth” has resounded since ancient times. But it is precisely in crisis that we must carry peace within our heart so we can remain steady no matter what happens around us. No matter the dramas of the world that arise with greater frequency.

I was heartened to read about the pledge of 1.8 billion minutes of peace, promised by women and women through acts of meditation, prayer or positive thoughts. This campaign, started by the Mindanao Commission of Women and the Mothers for Peace, is in support of the United Nations Decade of a Culture of Peace. They surpassed their target of one million signatures. They were overwhelmed with the result of 1.8 billion people who pledged these precious minutes of peace. This campaign, participated in by Muslims, Christians and groups like Brama Kumaris, continues until today due to its overwhelming response. Such an example is something we can link to in our thoughts daily. First the thought, and the acts will follow. This way, if all of us consciously thought peace, we will act peacefully and become PEACE itself. Simple acts of peace is always a conscious one. To see in every situation the chance to bring harmony in place of conflict, to smile at a stranger, to help, volunteer, empathize... the list can go on and on, but what is important is that a choice has to be made in the mind, then we act. At the year’s ending, here is the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi, that 13th-century Catholic saint to empower us into the New Year!

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

where there is sadness, joy;

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;

to be understood as to understand;

to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.