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Reflection for January 8 2006

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New Year Impressions

So here we are about to enter another cycle of the seasons. Of course at my age I've seen so many New Years come and go it's hard for me to get excited when some reincarnation of Guy Lombardo's orchestra launches into "Should old acquaintance be forgot". I mean, of late I've become one of those weary New Year's partygoers who keeps looking at his watch and wondering, "Do I really have to stay until midnight? My God, it's only 8:30!" But the other day I suddenly felt a need to shake that attitude lest I become a crank in my old age; lest I give up all expectation of anything new or novel influencing my life. And so I began recharging my batteries, reaching back to recall the years when novelty and surprise were quite frequent in my life and the future really something to look forward to. And I started with the first grade.

I could have started earlier as when my mother dressed me up for my first Halloween in a Krazy Kat costume or when I first saw snow. But I began with the moment at St. Cyril's school when my first grade classmate took a pencil and drew the outline of an automobile on his note pad and then said, "Now watch!" - and then lifted the page. And what did I behold but a replica of what he had drawn, somehow visible upon the page beneath! Of course it was the indentation of the picture he had drawn on the top page - impressed upon the vacant page - but to me it was sheer magic. And I guess from that point on, unconsciously I began to wonder what other surprises, what other magical impressions might be made upon the subsequent pages of my life.

And of course there were many, like my introduction at age 7 to the beautiful gothic interior of my next parish - the loftiness, the windows of every rich hue showing Jesus walking on the water or gathering children unto himself; the sense of having within this unusual building a place of refuge from the ugliness of the streets outside. And then there were the moves my family made, uprooting me from friendly impressions but always issuing in new experiences like the discovery of the suburbs and rose arbors and irises and enviable homes that seemed right out of a story book. And then there was my first major league ball game and a trip to Panama and my first experience of a boundless ocean and of a lizard called an Iguana. (Once you start doing this you could go on for hours recalling one memorable thing after another. I recommend you try it!)

For instance there was the day at age 15 when I boarded a train from Philadelphia up the majestic Hudson River to enter a Franciscan monastery on a mountaintop - away from the provincialism of my native Philadelphia to become part of a global, centuries old institution that would contribute to broadening and deepening my consciousness beyond my wildest expectations. (Otherwise I might still be in Philadelphia of which, you know, W. C. Fields once said: "I went to Philadelphia, but it was closed.") And thereafter came university and my critical introduction to Scripture and St. Paul - which radically changed my way of thinking and living. And a kiss from a new found kissing cousin on a railroad platform in Baltimore that awoke me to the existence of women.

Of course thinking of the positive surprises didn't prevent me from remembering the sad events, the tragic loss of a loved one, the scars left on my psyche by careless or incompetent adults, and so on. But the more I thought of those negative things, the more I realized they too had their positive consequences, shaping me into a more sober, wiser, dependable, even caring person. And so, given the persistence of novel experiences, of surprises throughout my life, why go sour about expectations now? Why stop welcoming a New Year even though I'm old, when in 2006 someone else may once more draw something upon a note pad, then begin to lift the page and say, "Now watch!"

-- Geoff Wood