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Community Corner

Starting Fresh This New Year

Columnist JoAnn Barrett suggests beginning 2012 as a blank canvas.

We have all heard it before that the new year is a good time to begin again. It is traditionally the time of the year to resolve, to improve or add a situation or condition to our lives. But what if we entered this year differently? What if we entered this year with no expectations only willingness?

Can you imagine a new year that was totally blank. It would have no past nor expectation of the future. How would it be if we entered this new year with the reality that each day we awoke with a blank notebook beside us and we could write our day? Think of the endless possibilities that would lay before us! Anything could be written on those pages!

I believe that we have a similar opportunity right now. We have a choice as to how we are going to perceive the events in our lives. From a spiritual perspective, the Divine is constantly offering us the opportunity to love each other. We meet another with the page already written. We not only have pages written on others, we have books written on them; sometimes even volumes! We do the same for ourselves, pages of criticism and requirements.

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If we trurly knew what the Divine’s will for us was, we would not have the need for prewritten pages. I have heard many people of faith speak of God's will, yet they proceed to describe what that will is. How could they know? I know the world's sacred scriptures give some suggestions as to how to live our lives but I am speaking of something deeper. I am speaking about what was written on our souls. If we are the children of the Divine then we should have some amazing DNA where some profound beauty and love is woven in to the very fiber of our being. I believe that the Divne wants us to live this magesty but we get in the way.

I heard a wonderful quote once and I don't know where it originated from but it struck me. It said that ‘God is not interested in changing your situation. He is interested in changing you. When He is done, the situation will be different.’ This sentiment describes God's will more profoundly and directly for me. God is interested in me. I believe that if we came into situations with a blank page then the Divine could write the plan and outcomes. All along the way the idea would be for me to get more in touch with the original intent behind the Divine’s purpose of lovingly creating each and everyone of us. This could be revealed to me rather than me determining what it should be.

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What if we went back to that blank page and turned it over to God and said, whatever you write in it will be amazing because what you have already written is glorious? This is coming with wholely open arms to the Father! This is true surrender and provides the openness that is needed to have a wondrous life to be laid before us.

So how do I accomplish this phenomenal task? The answer is simple. Begin each day with the Divine. Start with a simple meditation every morning. Empty your mind. Our minds are our notebooks that carry all the past ‘shoulds’, ‘could haves’ and ‘have tos’. Take a few minutes at the beginning of each new day and try to make it all blank. Then simply ask for Divine guidance. “Your will not mine be done”. Then, let the magic happen. Happy New Year!   

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