New Year’s Resolutions: To See Goodness

Over the years, here on this blog and in my 25 years of writing reflections for Living Faith, I have often recalled those times of finding and experiencing God through the wonder of the natural word. Indeed, many people say that they often experience God more intensely during a walk in the woods or along the beach than they do sitting in a church. And while I’m a big fan of sitting in churches, both in solitude and as part of a community of faith, I continue to readily find God in the simplicity and the complexity of God’s created world. For me and so many others, it is impossible to separate the created from the Creator, so the earth and all its marvels stand as constant and ever-changing monuments to the One who dreamed and fashioned and set all in motion.

In the creation story told in Genesis, even God seems to be amazed at his handiwork, so why should we not be? Over and over, at the passing of each day of work, God stands back, surveys his accomplishment, and says: “Yes, this is good.” For who can witness a clear starry night, a majestic mountain, or the power of the ocean’s surge without thinking the same? It is good, indeed.

So resolution #1: Spend more time outside. Take it all in. Relish the bigness of the sky and the forest and the smallness and intricacy of a leaf and a spider’s web. Find my place in all of this creation and respond to the Creator with thankfulness and a life of meaning and purpose.

But in the midst of all this expansive and inspirational natural beauty, it’s easy to miss the wonder of ourselves and of those around us. Sometimes we forget that God’s creation includes us. That waterfall is beautiful, we say, but there’s nothing special about me. In the midst of the daily grind, it can be hard to see the beauty and value in our lives and the real importance of the contributions we make. But the wonder of God is that, after creating the world, the divine stuck around to create us, set us in place, and call us by name. Our God knows our lives and how we live them–however small or insignificant they may seem to us. We need to remember that. We need to see the goodness in ourselves and in others and then stand back in awe, just as we might do standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon. For we are all as vast and as deep as any natural wonder of the world.

So resolution #2: Love myself and be thankful that I have been counted among God’s creation. Know that I am seen and known by  the Creator of all. Be patient with myself and with God and with all that is going on around me, because it’s all good, all wondrous, all of God.

And resolution #3: Spend more time with those I love and cherish. Look them in the eye more often and listen to their stories. Share more meals. Play more music. Hug them. Pray for them.

And resolution #4: Don’t look past the ones who don’t fit neatly and easily within my definition of “those I love and cherish.” See the goodness and creativity of the people with whom I work and worship. Consider sacred the lives of those I don’t even know, the ones with whom I share a shopping aisle or a road or a sidewalk. Understand and accept their imperfections and pray they do the same for me. See the creating hand of God on the homeless man across the street from my office. Set something aside for him. Ask him his name. Look him in the eye. Don’t look away because it’s easier.

I just returned from seeing the new movie version of “Les Miserables,” and the dying words of the story’s hero, Jean Valjean, have given new meaning to my consideration of the new year before me: “To love another person is to see the face of God…”

As glorious as the world is, it is also often broken, violent and hurting. So when we fail ourselves and wound and harm each other, let us turn our eyes to God and ask for strength to make it right. Let us find creative ways to make it better. Let us see the goodness in ourselves and share that with the world. We’ve got to learn to do this better, to go beyond argument, politics, violence and selfishness and find a place where the goodness of God dwells in us all. It is there if we’re willing to look and work for it and set aside the things that divide us. For in the end only three things remain…faith, hope and love and, as we should know, the greatest of these is love.

So happy New Year, and I leave you with the challenging words of the Jesuit scientist, philosopher and visionary Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who asks us to consider that we are all more than flesh and bone: “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”