Happy New Year's Eve Digital Neighbors! Merry Christmas (Day 7) for all you 12 Dayers! Good Morning all you Friends & Refugees, Early Birds & Later Dayers, Conversants & Lurkers over at the Report, all of the Phamily & Dawn Patrol over at Phetasy WOMEN Warriors and Dumpster Fire Aficionados, the Fascinating People, Triggeratti & Merry Bigots of the Nometry, all you Seekers of Sanity & Civility that are the pulse over at Tulsi. And of course, our own ADD Irregulars and Contributors of the Weird Shit Niche' that is often the pulse of our conversations at Padre's. Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to all of you.

A reflection and perhaps some commentary for those of you I know, appreciate and love and those who as yet to become a friend or active neighbor. David Whyte was one of the best purchases of 2022. Who knows what will come into my wheelhouse for 2023, I am hopeful even with the worrisome movements in our world. On to David.

BEGINNING well or beginning poorly, what is important is simply to begin, but the ability to make a good beginning is also an art form. Like picking up a new and unfamiliar musical instrument, the first necessary step involves taking the time to get a simple clear note, usually the simple clear note of forgiveness that comes in allowing yourself the right, at this stage, not to know anything at all. Beginning anything well involves a clearing away of the confusing, the cluttered and the complicated to find the beautiful, often hidden lineaments of the essential and the necessary.

Beginning is difficult, and our insulating rituals and the virtuoso subtleties of our methods of delay are always a fine, ever-present measure of our reluctance in taking that first close-in, courageous step to reclaiming the happiness of actually having started. Perhaps, because taking a new step always begins from the central, foundational core of the body, a body we have neglected, beginning well means seating ourselves in the body again, catching up with ourselves and the person we have become since we last tried to begin. This radical physical embodiment leads to an equally radical internal simplification, where, suddenly, very large parts of us, parts of us we have kept gainfully employed for years, parts of us still rehearsing the old complicated story, are suddenly out of a job.

There occurs, in effect, a form of internal corporate downsizing, where the parts of us too afraid to participate or having nothing now to offer, are let go, with all of the accompanying death-like trauma, and where the very last fight occurs, a rear-guard disbelief that this new, less complicated self, and this very simple step, is all that is needed for the new possibilities ahead.

It is always hard to believe that the courageous step is so close to us, that it is closer than we ever could imagine, that in fact we already know what it is, and that the step is simpler, more radical than we had thought: just picking up the pen or the wood chisel, just picking up the instrument or the phone, which is why we so often prefer the story to be more elaborate, our identities to be safely clouded by fear, why we want the horizon to remain always in the distance, the promise never fully and simply made, the essay longer than it needs to be and the answer safely in the realm of impossibility.

Whyte, David. Consolations - Revised edition: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words.

A lot to chew on there from David. I am sure many think of what will begin anew in the next few days. What changes do I know I need to make, but I am hesitant to make, reluctant to attempt or too lazy to try because I can tolerate the norm rather than strive for the better. Resignation is a wretched reality, and it feels so close to acceptance that some cannot distinguish between the two. Not perfect, but better. Not magical, but more fulfilling and sustainable. It is possible to change. This following section stood out to me

This radical physical embodiment leads to an equally radical internal simplification, where, suddenly, very large parts of us, parts of us we have kept gainfully employed for years, parts of us still rehearsing the old complicated story, are suddenly out of a job.

Parts of us still rehearsing - that interior voice that is less than supportive, that interior voice that reminds you of your failures, that freely points out your wounds, that seems to remind you that your life is either prison or a padded cell from which you cannot escape. That voice can be muted, sometimes even evicted. I am a fan of muting, but remembering what that voice used to say. I don't ever want to give my past a pass as it were, it is part of my story, it is part of the making of my present chapter, but I want to look at it different. I can see it in a new light. Everyone can see it in a new light, some more easily than others, past chapters and other complications can exist, it is never an easy climb, but it the one essential to a more content future and a more complete you.

It is always hard to believe that the courageous step is so close to us Closer than we imagine, it doesn't take New Year to change your life, but there is something powerful in the symbolism of the New Year and its promise. Even if on day 2 you fall, go offroad, or otherwise fail, you do not not have to give ear to that voice you gainfully employed for years. You arise and try again. So much success and satisfaction in life comes from not quitting. The pain of struggle is much more satisfying than resignations of the past. There is NEVER a "is this all there is" moment in life unless you let that voice occupy is old space. I won't live long enough to awaken completely to what the future has to reveal to me. I hope to find a few golden threads, live by them, share them with the people I love and serve, and do my best to prepare to complete bootcamp for that lies beyond the veil after life. Well, thanks for listening to me this long. A few quotes that I carry into the New Year. Many prayers and blessing to all of you.

We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures, we are the sum of the Father's love for us and our real capacity to become the image of His Son Jesus. ― Pope John Paul II

It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to. ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

And finally one for my fellow Catholics - active and free-roaming, the engaged and the forgetful.

Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament. . . . There you will find romance, glory, honour, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves on earth, and more than that: Death: by the divine paradox, that which ends life, and demands the surrender of all, and yet by the taste—or foretaste—of which alone can what you seek in your earthly relationships (love, faithfulness, joy) be maintained, or take on that complexion of reality, of eternal endurance, which every man’s heart desires. J. R. R. Tolkien - Letter 43 to his son Michael